more precisely.” An illustration of the BepiColombo spacecraft approaching Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun. Credit: ESA

Data Mars has a long history of triggering these perceptions. In 1976, the Viking 1 orbiter captured an image of a mesa in the Cydonia region that resembled a human face. While this led to widespread speculation about extraterrestrial architecture,...

cosmonauts currently residing on the station, who represent a collaborative effort between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and Roscosmos. A Progress 96 cargo spacecraft packed with about three tons of food, fuel and supplies lifted off from...

upper ionosphere, the disturbance reached deep into the lower atmosphere. According to Laura Hayes, a solar physicist at the ESA, the event left an imprint on the lowest layers of the ionosphere comparable to that of a major solar flare. By ionizing...

ESA’s Juice spacecraft is preparing for a critical Earth gravity assist, a key maneuver shaping its long-term journey to explore the moons of Jupiter. The European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) is closing in on Earth for a critical...

which is known for its thick atmosphere and liquid methane surface features. Image credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA Predicting Future Oppositions Because Saturn requires roughly 29.4 years to complete a single trip around the Sun, while...

of these rare, oversized worlds. An artist’s illustration showing a gas giant world around a red dwarf star. Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)

viable well into the next decade. The galaxy cluster MACS J0417 observed by the Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, M. Pascale (UCLA) Because of gradual atmospheric drag, the telescope’s altitude is slowly decaying. Agency...

signal delays ranging from four to 21 minutes. This makes real-time remote control impossible. While mission operators at the ESA control center in Turin will provide broad objectives, the rover must be capable of independent obstacle avoidance and...

beneath, which is known as the North Polar Residual Cap. Orbiting spacecraft, including the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and ESA’s Mars Express, have tracked these seasonal changes, revealing how the surface brightness shifts as the frost clears. By...

which uses quantum‑based detectors, allowing scientists to see deeper into space and time than ever before. (CREDIT: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, V. Almendros-Abad, M. Guarcello, K. Monsch, and the EWOCS team)

that are typically invisible to standard optical telescopes. NGC 7129 Side-by-Side (Spitzer and Webb Image) Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, NASA-JPL; Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI) A Massive Engine of Change Dominating the center of the field is...

whose location is shown by the white cross. They found it is a small dwarf galaxy actively forming stars.Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Themiya Nanayakkara (USYD); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI) “The galaxy hosting this burst is surprisingly...

the avalanche, show how flood water and debris spread downstream from the glaciated area where the rock and ice fell – © ESA Black carbon—the soot byproduct of incomplete fuel combustion—has surged in South Asia alongside rapid industrial growth. The...

Dublin and the study’s lead author. Artist’s impression of SIMP 0136, an isolated planetary-mass object. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI) Decoding Atmospheric Data To distill these patterns from the complex data stream, the team employed...

findings were unexpected. The projected trajectory of Apophis carries it harmlessly past both Earth and the Moon. Credit: ESA “I was expecting a null experiment, meaning no possible interactions,” Rossi explained to ScienceAlert. Instead, their...

velocities often exceeding 17,000 miles per hour, even a tiny piece of debris can be catastrophic. The European Space Agency (ESA) has cautioned that fragments as small as one centimeter can compromise satellite systems or pierce shielding, while larger...

region, including methanol, methyl formate, and dimethyl ether. Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF; ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO); Herschel/ESA; NASA/JPL-Caltech; NOAO Drozdovskaya noted that the full analysis of the survey will likely span several years, as researchers work...

Martian system in August 2027, with a return to Earth planned for 2031. The Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission. (CREDIT: ESA) Solving the Origin of Martian Moons For decades, astronomers have debated the genesis of Phobos and Deimos. One leading...

Scientists discover an old asteroid trajectory that offers a faster route to Mars, but it demands a massive boost in propulsion power. A crewed mission could lift off from Earth on 20 April 2031, coast to Mars in 56 days, spend five weeks exploring the...