Astronomy

Auroras may be visible from Alaska to Washington as a giant hole in the sun's atmosphere fuels geomagnetic storms with a high-speed solar wind.

The nova appears to be dimming and may soon be undetectable by the unaided eye.

Video: 00:02:36

On 26 June 2025 ESA project astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski from Poland and his crewmates arrived to the International Space Station on the Axiom-4 mission (Ax-4).
The Polish project astronaut is the second of a new generation of European astronauts to fly on a commercial human spaceflight opportunity with Axiom Space.
Sponsored by the Polish government and supported by ESA, the Polish Ministry of Economic Development and Technology (MRiT), and the Polish Space Agency (POLSA), the mission will include an ambitious technological and scientific programme with several experiments led by ESA and proposed by the Polish space industry.

Access the related broadcast quality footage: Launch campaign / Training

With their country threatened by sea level rise, the people of Tuvalu have been offered an escape route through an agreement with Australia, and many are contemplating leaving their home

With their country threatened by sea level rise, the people of Tuvalu have been offered an escape route through an agreement with Australia, and many are contemplating leaving their home

A rapidly warming Arctic is driving long-lasting summer extremes, such as this month’s sweltering temperatures, new research suggests

A walk in the desert and a curious discovery could have revealed that the secrets of alien life grow in the harshest conditions on Earth in the form of lichen.

The recent erratic behaviour of the polar jet stream isn't out of the ordinary, researchers have found by compiling data from the past 125 years

The recent erratic behaviour of the polar jet stream isn't out of the ordinary, researchers have found by compiling data from the past 125 years

The telescope, working with the world's largest digital camera, scans the night sky in search of dark matter.

At the Living Planet Symposium, attendees have been hearing how ESA’s Next Generation Gravity Mission could provide the first opportunity to directly track a vital ocean circulation system that warms our planet – but is now weakening, risking a possible collapse with far-reaching consequences.

The amount of data generated by the Rubin Observatory is going to blow all previous cosmic datasets out of the water, but handling that much information poses a severe challenge.

Later this year a tiny rover will carry out an unusual lunar task

The second of the Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) satellites and the first instrument for the Copernicus Sentinel-4 mission are ready for liftoff at Cape Canaveral in Florida, US. Live coverage of this launch will be shown on ESA WebTV, on Tuesday, 1 July.

The European Space Agency’s Mars Express has captured a swirl of colour on the Red Planet, with yellows and rust-oranges meeting deep reds and browns. Lurking within this martian palette are not one but four dust devils, each snaking their way across the surface.

At ESA’s Living Planet Symposium, scientists have unveiled how the combination of different long-term, high-resolution satellite datasets from ESA’s Climate Change Initiative is shedding new light on the South American Gran Chaco – one of the world’s most endangered dry forest ecosystems. These data reveal, in remarkable clarity, that fire is the primary driver of widespread, accelerating deforestation across the region. 

Helping yourself get to sleep isn’t just about avoiding screens before bedtime. From cognitive shuffling to sleep-restriction therapy, columnist Helen Thomson finds out what actually works

Thimerosal, which contains an organic compound of mercury, has mostly been phased out as a preservative for vaccines. Here’s how we know it is safe and why we still use it in some vaccines given to adults