Over the many years the Hubble Space Telescope has spent orbiting the Earth, it has had its share of issues. The space telescope has also taken some of the most spectacular images of the cosmos humans have ever seen. One of the most beautiful images Hubble has taken is of the Veil Nebula.
The ESA is talking about its Lunar Pathfinder mission to the moon. That mission will carry an advanced satellite navigation receiver and will perform the first satnav positioning fix in lunar orbit. The ESA says the experimental payload is a preliminary step in its plan to expand reliable satnav coverage and communication links to explorers around and on the moon during the decade.
Each year when spring arrives in southern Mars, a strange cloud of water ice emerges near the extremely tall Arsia Mons volcano. The cloud stretches for hundreds of kilometers before it fades away over hours. Researchers have been performing a detailed long-term study of the phenomena and has discovered the secret of the elongated cloud using observations from the Mars WebCam on the ESA Mars Express spacecraft.
Back in 2019, the European Space Agency (ESA) asked for ideas for detecting, mapping, and exploring lunar caves. The ESA selected five of those ideas to be studied in more detail, with each addressing a different phase of a potential mission to the moon for exploring lunar caves. There were five Sysnova studies, and three mission scenarios were developed.
There are several disaster movies out there that show what it might be like if a giant asteroid or comet impacted the earth. Asteroids have hit the earth in the distant past, and one such impact is credited with wiping the vast majority of dinosaurs off the planet. One of the most concerning asteroids that passes through our solar system is known as Apophis.
The ESA is currently operating a scientific mission in space using the Solar Orbiter known as Solo by the team operating it. The spacecraft has been in orbit for a year, having launched on February 10, 2020. Its mission is to image the sun and observe the solar wind while attempting to unravel many lingering mysteries about the solar cycle.
This week the United Arab Emirates reached orbit around the red planet Mars. The Hope spacecraft launched all the way back in July of 2020 and just reached Mars here on the 9th of February, 2021. "This has been a remarkable journey of humanity," said UAE Space Agency chairperson Sarah Al Amiri. This is the UAE's first ever interplanetary mission.
Last Thursday, a massive amount of information was released to astronomers from the ESA Gaia space observatory. The data provides an incredibly detailed map of the Milky Way described as the best of its sort ever available. The new map has information on the positions, distance, and motion of 1.8 billion cosmic objects.
The ESA has signed a contract with an industrial team led by ClearSpace SA worth €86 million to remove a specific piece of space debris. Under the contract, ClearSpace SA will launch the first active debris removal mission known as ClearSpace-1. That mission will rendezvous with, capture, and push a Vespa payload adapter in the atmosphere where it will burn up.
SpaceX successfully launched the NASA and ESA satellite known as Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich. Launch occurred without a hitch Saturday putting the satellite into the orbit it needed to peer down at the earth and observe our oceans. The satellite will be able to measure sea levels across 90 percent of the oceans around the world within a few centimeters.
The European Space Agency has announced that the Atmospheric remote-sensing infrared exoplanet large-survey (Ariel) mission has moved from the study phase to the implementation phase. An industrial contractor will be selected to build the spacecraft. Ariel's mission is to study what exoplanets are made of and how they form and evolve.
Yesterday, October 31, 2020, marks exactly a year before NASA intends to put its high-tech and extremely powerful James Webb Space Telescope into orbit. The launch date for the telescope is currently set for October 31, 2021. That will be a Sunday, and scientists all around the world are greatly anticipating the launch.