European Space Agency (EU)
Hubble helps find candidate for most distant object in the Universe yet observed
November 16, 2012 10:06 am | News | CommentsBy combining the power of the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and one of nature’s zoom lenses, astronomers have found what is probably the most distant galaxy yet seen in the universe. The object offers a peek back into a time when the Universe was only 3% of its present age of 13.7 billion years.
Satellite data reveals power of solar wind
October 25, 2012 12:28 pm | by Karen C. Fox, NASA | News | CommentsA new study based on data from European Space Agency’s Cluster mission shows that it is easier for the solar wind to penetrate Earth’s magnetic environment, the magnetosphere, than had previously been thought. Scientists have, for the first time, directly observed the presence of certain waves that show Earth’s atmosphere behaving more like a sieve than a barrier.
Dark universe mission blueprint complete
June 20, 2012 4:41 am | News | CommentsThe European Space Agency's Euclid mission to explore the hidden side of the universe—dark energy and dark matter—reached an important milestone that will see it head towards full construction.
ESA tests self-steering rover in 'Mars' desert
June 19, 2012 7:44 am | News | CommentsThe European Space Agency (ESA) assembled a top engineering team then challenged them to devise a way for rovers to navigate on alien planets. Six months later, a fully autonomous vehicle was charting its own course through Chile's Mars-like Atacama Desert.
Imagery reveals Martian summits where buried ice lies
December 2, 2011 11:14 am | News | CommentsNew images from ESA’s Mars Express show the Phlegra Montes mountain range in greater detail. The range is in a region where radar probing has indicated large volumes of water ice should be hiding below. This could be a source of water for future astronauts.
ESA finds that Venus has an ozone layer too
October 10, 2011 4:40 am | News | CommentsThe European Space Agency’s Venus Express spacecraft has discovered an ozone layer high in the atmosphere of Venus. Ozone has only previously been detected in the atmospheres of Earth and Mars. On Earth, it is both generated by and protects life from the sun’s harmful rays, but on Mars and Venus, the effect is non-biological.
Dark and bright: ESA chooses next two science missions
October 5, 2011 5:42 am | News | CommentsThe powerful influence of the Sun and the nature of mysterious dark energy motivate ESA’s next two science missions. Solar Orbiter will venture closer to the Sun than any previous mission, and Euclid will be a space telescope designed to map out the large-scale structure of the cosmos.
Massive trenches accentuate Mars’ methane mystery
May 6, 2011 10:34 am | News | CommentsThe great “canyon” formed by Nili Fossae on Mars is a lot like the Dead Sea, a depressed region between two faults. But instead of a salt sea, this great rift on Mars, recently imaged in spectacular detail by the European Space Agency, is thought to be the source of elevated methane levels that have been detected by telescopes on Earth.
First galaxies were born much earlier than expected
April 12, 2011 9:24 am | News | CommentsUsing a cosmic gravitational lens, astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have discovered a distant galaxy whose stars were born unexpectedly early in cosmic history. So early, in fact, that its stars were born just 200 million years after the Big Bang. The discovery may help explain, in a roundabout way, the deficit of radiation that has caused the Universe to be transparent to ultraviolet light.
