ESO Top News

Image: This image, captured by Copernicus Sentinel-2, gives us a glimpse of Ecuador’s capital, Quito, sprawling for 40 km along this high-altitude valley in the Andes.

This month, ESA’s Mars Express takes us to Shalbatana Vallis: a fascinating martian valley surrounded by signs of water, lava, craters and chaos.

ESA will be broadcasting live as the European-Chinese Smile mission launches at 04:52 BST/05:52 CEST (00:52 local time) on 19 May 2026.

Smile will launch on a European Vega-C rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.

Times subject to change at short notice.

Week in images: 04-08 May 2026

Discover our week through the lens

Image: Part of the rugged and deeply indented coast of northeastern Greenland is featured in this radar image captured by Copernicus Sentinel-1.

The European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) have signed a Memorandum of Cooperation to deepen collaboration in planetary defence, alongside a dedicated agreement for collaboration on the Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety (Ramses) to the near-Earth asteroid Apophis.

The European Space Agency (ESA) is using Extended Reality (XR) to support training, enhance operations, improve simulation environments, and to bring the wonders of space to the public.

In the far northern reaches of Finnish Lapland, an ambitious new chapter in Earth observation is unfolding. The European Space Agency, together with the Finnish Meteorological Institute and Finnish industrial partners, is advancing plans to develop a state-of-the-art ‘supersite’ in Sodankylä.

The plan is to equip this remote site with an array of new advanced environmental measuring technologies, including a striking high-tech airship carrying sensors to perform regional surveys.

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope together with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have looked deeply at thousands of young star clusters in four nearby galaxies, studying clusters at different stages of evolution. Their findings show that more massive star clusters emerge more quickly from the clouds they are born in, clearing away gas and filling the galaxy with ultraviolet light. The result gives us a better understanding of star formation in galaxies, as well as how and where planets can form.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has partnered with French video game studio DON’T NOD Entertainment on the development of Aphelion, a narrative science‑fiction game inspired by space exploration and scientific expertise.