ESA Space Science

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Keeping you posted on space science activities from the European Space Agency.

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Are we there yet? 😜

After eight years in space, Bepi and Mio can finally say: almost there! Send them a #WelcomeToMercury message and you could win a trip to ESA in Darmstadt, Germany, this December.

Say hello 👇
esa.int/WelcomeToMercury 🔭

Illustration showing BepiColombo cartoon characters Bepi and Mio waving. To the left of the characters, a text reads ‘Welcome BepiColombo to Mercury!’. On the lower part of the image, we see part of planet Mercury on the left, and the hashtag WelcomeToMercury on the right.
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🗞️The latest edition of the ESA Science Newsletter is out!

Learn about:
🔴 Plato's Guest Observer Programme: AO-1 selection announced
🔴 A survey of European data requirements after Roman's launch
🔴 A call for a Juice Planetary Scientist & more

Access the edition 👉 cosmos.esa.int/web/scinews 🔭 ☄️

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Now, the spacecraft has added another piece to this puzzle by tracing a switchback back to its source at the Sun.

The observations provided clues that suggest the two main competing theories for how a switchback forms might both be true 👉 www.esa.int/Science_Expl...

🔭 🧪☀️

Infographic explaining how magnetic switchbacks form near the Sun's surface
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Solar Orbiter tracks the origin of the Sun's mysterious magnetic switchbacks ☀️ Back in 2022, Solar Orbiter spotted a kink in the solar wind’s magnetic field known as a ‘switchback’ and confirmed it to be S-shaped: something scientists had predicted but not seen directly. 🔭 🧪

An image showing the Sun glowing yellow in the top right, with a blue S-shaped burst extending to the left
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Mars’s oddest cloud may be even odder than we thought 🤔 Every spring and summer in Mars’s southern hemisphere a spectacular cloud emerges: the Arsia Mons Elongated Cloud, the most visually striking cloud on the Red Planet. 🔭 🧪

Tan-coloured horizontal rectangle showing part of the surface of Mars imaged by an orbiting satellite. On the right is a ring of concentric circles that indicate a volcano. Stretching to the left of the volcano is a long wisp of white cloud, which seems to emanate from the volcano. We also see the shadow of the cloud just above the cloud itself. CREDIT: ESA/DLR/FU BerlinTan-coloured horizontal rectangle showing part of the surface of Mars imaged by an orbiting satellite. Above the curved horizon is space. To the lower right of the image is a volcano. Stretching to the left of the volcano is a long wisp of white cloud, which seems to emanate from the volcano. We also see the shadow of the cloud just below the cloud itself. CREDIT: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin
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A glowing stellar nursery 👶⭐

Webb’s infrared sensitivity has revealed the protostars & stars of NGC 7129, a stellar nursery that lies 3,300 light-years from Earth.

In the centre, lies the massive star LkH(alpha) 234, which has carved into its cloudy surroundings 👉 www.esa.int/ESA_Multimed...

🔭 🧪

A young star cluster filled with many stars that display Webb’s unique eight-pronged diffraction pattern. At its center is a yellow star which sports the largest diffraction pattern. To the left of the star, there is a region filled with yellow dust and gas that extends from the star to the left border of the image. This yellow region extends from the bottom, covering about two-thirds of the image. The yellow region has several blue stars of different sizes embedded within. The top third, which lies outside of the yellow region, holds a few bright protostars, within dense gray gas. Those stars illuminate the gas, making it appear blue. A few red outflows from other protostars are visible above this grayish-blue region. To the right of the central star, there is a clumpy, flame-like plume of red dust and gas with protostars that emit a soft white light within. The plume is surrounded by more dense gray gas and dust. There are several background galaxies strewn throughout the image. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: A. Pagan (STScI)
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Can planets emerge from the deaths of stars? 💀 Astronomers looking through Hubble data from 1999 have identified unusual amounts of niobium in the chemical signatures from a white dwarf. 🔭 🧪

Artist's impression of a gaseous planet in the right foreground, seen mostly in silhouette, orbits a small, white star in the background at left. The star is surrounded by a thin, bright white disk tilted from lower left to upper right. A semi-transparent tail of material comes off the planet toward the upper right. Distant stars dot the black background of space. Credit: NASA, ESA, L. Hustak (STScI)
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A ‘Juice eye view’ of our home planet 🌍

On 28 September, our Juice mission completed a gravity assist flyby of Earth.

As Juice flew just 8640 km above the Indian Ocean, it snapped a series of images with its onboard monitoring cameras, giving us these unique views 👇
youtu.be/zmW8hgV39IU

🔭 🧪

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A crash course on planet-shattering collisions, from Webb 🌏💥

A Mars-sized world called Theia once smashed into Earth, leading to the creation of our Moon.

Now, Webb has examined a class of young stellar systems that show signs of similar upheavals 👉 esawebb.org/news/weic2618/

🔭 🧪

Artist’s concept of a star and its debris disc against the black background of space. The star is in the background, right of center, and depicted as a small, luminous sphere. The debris disc is a large blue ring that encircles the star. The debris disc is angled toward the viewer, so that the portion nearest to the viewer extends beyond the bottom frame of the illustration. Many dark, rocky fragments are scattered throughout the debris disc. In the foreground, toward the left, is a small planetary embryo colliding into the left side of a larger spherical object. The impact site glows bright yellow and orange and has a mottled appearance, as though chunks of both colliding bodies are breaking up and being destroyed. Orange-yellow streams of vapor extend outward from the collision area. Behind the debris disc and its star are many small stars in the background. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, J. Olmsted (STScI)
@exploration.esa.intReposted by @science.esa.int

Happy New Mars Year! 🥳 At exactly 10:16 CEST/08:16 UTC on Earth, the Red Planet begins a new orbit around our Sun. Join us in celebrating martian year 39 🎉

Infographic with facts and figures about New Mars Year 39.
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Ten years ago one daring spacecraft made a final descent 🥹 On 30 September 2016, the Rosetta mission concluded with a controlled impact onto Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, taking one last image. 🔭 🧪

Rosetta's last image of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko: a blurry close-up of a grey surface scattered with boulders and pebbles.
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