The European Space Agency's Mars Express mission recently wrapped up its tracking of Phobos, the innermost moon orbiting Mars. Using the spacecraft's camera, the mission captured images of the oddly shaped moon from many angles, the collection of which have been assembled together into a video. Visible in the images are a number of the moon's features, including large craters and other marks.
The European Space Agency has announced the first-ever mission to retrieve a piece of space trash while it is in orbit around our planet. Called ClearSpace-1, the mission is taking place under a consortium being led by ClearSpace, a startup located in Switzerland. The ESA has granted the consortium permission to send in a final proposal for the project, which is scheduled to take place in March 2020.
The European Space Agency has announced that astronaut Luca Parmitano successfully navigated a rover through an obstacle course to collect a rock sample all the way from the International Space Station. The obstacle course was located in the Netherlands where the test took place on Monday. The ESA developed the technology used to remotely operate rovers from space.
The European Space Agency has published two concept images that show the hibernation pods and crew cabin that may be used as part of future long-term space missions involving human astronauts. The work comes from the ESA's Concurrent Design Facility, which was tasked with evaluating the use of hibernation in trips to other nearby planets including Mars.
If you're looking for a way to help experts make an impact on our planet, the ESA has pointed toward Lost at Night, a project that needs the public's help identifying areas of light pollution captured in images taken from space. The project intends to raise light pollution awareness, and it is now asking the public to help researchers in this field by cataloging the images.
The European Space Agency has published a new image showing a 'slice' of Mars, one that ranges from the planet's white cloud-covered north pole down through a band of pocked orange landscape to dark blue southern terrain. The image results from observations made by the ESA's Mars Express spacecraft, offering a unique, colorful, and highly detailed look at the barren planet.
Asteroid researchers and spacecraft designers are meeting up in Rome next week to discuss a common goal of a double spacecraft mission to deflect an asteroid in space. The scientists want to prove if their technique is a viable method of planetary defense against asteroids. The mission is known as Asteroid Impact Deflection Assessment or AIDA.
Late in July, astronomers were caught off guard by the sudden presence of a large asteroid only hours away from zooming past Earth. Called 2019 OK, this asteroid measured around 426ft in diameter and came closer to Earth than the Moon. Experts previously shared a video showing the asteroid's trajectory in relation to our planet, but a new view from the European Space Agency shows the asteroid itself.
Officials with NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have settled on which orbit will be used for the future lunar Gateway outpost, the agencies have announced. After considering different orbit options, scientists have settled on the near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO), which is described as an 'eccentric' route around the Moon, one that brings it close to the lunar surface at one point and far away at the other.
One of the big challenges that the ESA and NASA are facing is keeping astronauts healthy on future long-duration space mission to other planets. On a trip to Mars, for instance, there is a real chance of injury requiring the sort of medical services readily available on Earth, but not available on Mars or inside a spaceship. To help provide astronauts with anything they might need the ESA has been working on a project to bioprint skin and bone.
NASA wants to put humans on the moon again in the future and is gearing up for the missions along with the ESA. NASA and the ESA recently tested out a system that is designed to allow the recovery of a downed astronaut on the surface of the moon. The challenge if an astronaut became ill or injured and falls on the moon and is unable to get up is that fellow astronauts can't pick them up because of the bulky spacesuits they wear.
The medical field is faced with a very hard to win battle with all sorts of bacteria developing resistance to antibiotics. Increasingly resistant bacteria could mean infections that are hard or impossible to cure leading to the death of sick people. Researchers working on helping humans to live on Mars might be able to help with the problem of drug-resistant bacteria. One challenge for living on Mars is that the soil there has perchlorate chemical compounds in it.