The ESA has announced that the solar Orbiter has made its first close approach to the Sun. The event happened on June 15 with the solar Orbiter approaching as close as 77 million km to the Sun's surface. That is about half the distance between the Sun and Earth. The point that is closest to the Sun is known as the perihelion.
The European Space Agency (ESA) has released a new online mapping tool that shows the level of nitrogen dioxide pollution around the world. The data comes from the Copernicus Sentinel-5P (S5P) satellite, which was launched in 2017 to measure air pollutants globally using its Tropomi instrument. This online portal is released as part of the wider S5P Product Algorithm (S5P-PAL) project.
The European Space Agency or ESA is working on a precursor to an ultra-low-cost rocket called the Prometheus. The space agency says that the rocket is flexible enough to be used on a fleet of new launch vehicles for any mission. The rocket could also potentially be reusable, saving costs making launches cheaper.
In 2017, the European Space Agency tapped ArianeGroup to develop Prometheus, a full-sized and liquid-fueled rocket engine demonstrator intended to pave the way for reusable rocket engines. At the time, the agency had said that its demonstrator would be ground tested in November 2020; this week, the ESA returned with an update on the project, including some new dates.
The first stars in the early universe could've formed far earlier than scientists first believed, new findings from the Hubble Space Telescope suggest, opening new questions about the evolution of galaxies shortly after the Big Bang. Researchers had expected to find so-called Population III stars in the latest Hubble observations, but turned up empty-handed.
The ESA has announced that over the next few days, the Solar Orbiter will pass through the tails of comet Atlas. The Solar Orbiter only recently launched and wasn't due to begin taking science data at this time. Mission controllers have worked to ensure that the four most relevant instruments will be switched on during the unique encounter.
An ESA program called the Discovery & Preparation program funded the design of a laser system that could keep a rover supplied with power up to 15 km away from a lander spacecraft. The ESA believes that the rover powered by laser light could be used to explore the permanently darkened craters on the poles of the Moon. These permanently dark craters are believed to be rich in water ice and other valuable materials.
The European Space Agency is exploring how astronaut urine could be repurposed as a valuable building material, potentially enabling stronger 3D printed Moon bases and more. The research, published in the Journal of Cleaner Production, focused on using what would normally be a waste byproduct requiring disposal, and making it much more useful.
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has given astronomers the sharpest view yet of the breakup of a comet called Comet C/2019 Y4 (Atlas). Hubble was able to resolve approximately 30 fragments of the comet on April 20 and 25 pieces on April 23. The comet was first discovered in December 2019 by the ATLAS robotic astronomical survey system in Hawai'i.
The European Space Agency has revealed that it is working with NASA to help it analyze a sample collected from a lunar landslide during the Apollo 17 mission in the early 1970s. The work will help shed light on aspects of the Moon using technologies that weren't available when the sample was collected, as well as determining whether this method of sample collection and storage was effective for preserving the sample.
The European Space Agency has introduced a new space glove concept that would not only protect astronauts from the vacuum of space, but also enable them to control drones using nothing by hand gestures. The concept Power Glove comes from designer Agatha Medioni and French company Comex, which used materials developed under the ESA-funded Project Pextex.
A couple of years ago, the European Space Agency launched its BepiColombo spacecraft on a mission toward Mercury. Late last week, this spacecraft successfully completed its first Earth flyby, according to the ESA, which reports that BepiColombo will complete a total of nine flybys during its time in space. On April 10, the spacecraft came within 7,891 miles of our planet.