ESO Top News

Week in images: 28 July - 1 August 2025

Discover our week through the lens

Data from ESA’s Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission can be used to estimate how much carbon is stored in forests – and a study has improved our understanding of how reliable this proxy is and how long-term datasets from SMOS can help us to monitor this valuable resource.

Europe’s forests play a crucial role in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but research led by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre has found their capacity to absorb carbon dioxide has declined in the past decade.

More than one star contributes to the irregular shape of NGC 6072 – Webb’s newest look at this planetary nebula in the near- and mid-infrared shows what may appear as a very messy scene resembling splattered paint. However, the unusual, asymmetrical scene hints at more complicated mechanisms underway, as the star central to the scene approaches the very final stages of its life and expels shells of material, losing up to 80 percent of its mass.

Using data from several Earth-observing satellites, including ESA’s CryoSat and the Copernicus Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 missions, scientists have discovered that a huge flood beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet surged upwards with such force that it fractured the ice sheet, resulting in a vast quantity of meltwater bursting through the ice surface.

Highlights and liftoff of Vega-C flight VV27 from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, at 23:03 local time on 25 July (03:03 BST/04:03 CEST on 26 July).

Flight VV27 was operated by Arianespace and launched Airbus’s four CO3D satellites and the French space agency CNES MicroCarb mission.

The four small satellites in the CO3D constellation (an abbreviation of the French 'Constellation Optique en 3D') are set to map the globe in three dimensions from low Earth orbit, to serve public and private sector needs.

MicroCarb is designed to map sources and sinks of carbon dioxide on a global scale. ESA coordinated and procured the launch of MicroCarb on behalf of the European Commission, as part of its In-Orbit Demonstration / In-Orbit Validation (IOD/IOV) programme.

Week in images: 21-25 July 2025

Discover our week through the lens

The journey to launch is picking up pace for Europe’s MetOp Second Generation weather satellite – which hosts the Copernicus Sentinel-5 as part of its instrument package. Specialists at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou have completed the critical and hazardous task of fuelling the satellite, marking a major milestone in its final preparations for liftoff.