ESO Top News

After being packed up in Germany, a long voyage to the US and then a month in storage, ESA’s EarthCARE satellite has been carefully lifted out of its transport container so that the team at the launch site can start getting it ready for its big day in May.

Wading through the wealth of data from ESA’s Gaia mission, scientists have uncovered a ‘sleeping giant’. A large black hole, with a mass of nearly 33 times the mass of the Sun, was hiding in the constellation Aquila, less than 2000 light-years from Earth. This is the first time a black hole of stellar origin this big has been spotted within the Milky Way. So far, black holes of this type have only been observed in very distant galaxies. The discovery challenges our understanding of how massive stars develop and evolve. 

ESA accelerates the race towards clean energy from space

Meet Hera, our very own asteroid detective. Together with two CubeSats – Milani the rock decoder and Juventas the radar visionary – Hera is off on an adventure to explore Didymos, a double asteroid system that is typical of the thousands that pose an impact risk to planet Earth.

In September 2022 NASA’s DART spacecraft tested if it was possible to divert an asteroid by giving it a shove – and found out that it was! Important knowledge, should we wish to avoid going the same way as the dinosaurs. Astronomers can observe from afar how the smaller asteroid’s orbit has shifted since DART’s impact, but there is still a missing piece of the puzzle if we want to fully understand how ‘kinetic impacting’ works in practice. Suitable for kids and adults alike, this episode of ‘The Incredible Adventures of Hera’ explains why ESA’s asteroid detective and its CubeSat assistants need to get up close and personal to shine light on this cosmic mystery.

Watch the other episodes of The Incredible Adventures of the Hera Mission

EarthCARE: cloud and aerosol mission

One year of basic training will soon bear fruit for ESA’s astronaut candidates Sophie Adenot, Pablo Álvarez Fernández, Rosemary Coogan, Raphaël Liégeois, Marco Sieber and Australian Space Agency astronaut candidate Katherine Bennell-Pegg.

On 22 April 2024, these astronaut candidates will receive their certification at ESA's European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany, officially becoming fully fledged astronauts eligible for spaceflight.

Week in images: 08-12 April 2024

Discover our week through the lens

As they reach the end of one year of rigorous basic astronaut training, ESA astronaut candidates Sophie Adenot, Rosemary Coogan, Pablo Álvarez Fernández, Raphaël Liégeois, Marco Sieber and Australian Space Agency astronaut candidate Katherine Bennell-Pegg will receive astronaut certification at ESA’s European Astronaut Centre on 22 April 2024.

The group was selected in November 2022 and began their training in April 2023.

Basic astronaut training provides the candidates with an overall familiarisation and training in various areas, such as spacecraft systems, spacewalking, flight engineering, robotics and life support systems, as well as survival and medical training.

Following certification, the new astronauts will move on to the next phases of pre-assignment and mission-specific training, paving the way for future missions to the International Space Station and beyond.

Join us for the graduation ceremony live on ESA Web TV on Monday 22 April from 10:00 – 11:30 CEST.

One year since the launch of ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice), we catch up with core team members Claire Vallat, Giuseppe Sarri, Olivier Witasse and Ignacio Tanco.

From memories of launch day to hopes for the future, they talk honestly about the ups and downs of flying a space mission, and reveal how they’re ensuring that Juice will be a huge success.

On the last day of his Huginn mission, ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen takes us on a tour of the place he called home for 6 months: the International Space Station. From the beautiful views of Cupola to the kitchen in Node 1 filled with food and friends and all the way to the science of Columbus, the Space Station is the work and living place for astronauts as they help push science forward. 

Suit up and get ready to launch on your own amazingly realistic Moon mission! Available now in Fortnite, Lunar Horizons is a vividly immersive experience set on the Moon during a future international mission. Released on 11 April 2024, the game was created by Epic Games, ESA and Hassell, in collaboration with Buendea and Team PWR.

Sophie Adenot is one of ESA's five astronaut candidates currently undergoing basic astronaut training at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany. Tune in as she shares her experiences in astronaut training, her favourite lessons, as well as tips on maintaining the balance and achieving your dreams.

This is Episode 6 of our ESA Explores podcast series introducing the ESA astronaut class of 2022, recorded in November 2023.

Music and audio editing by Denzel Lorge. Cover art by Gaël Nadaud.

Access all ESA Explores podcasts.

ESA’s Proba-2 captured two partial solar eclipses on 8 April 2024. 

A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, totally or partially blocking the Sun from Earth’s point of view. On 8 April, lucky viewers across North America witnessed the Moon blocking out the Sun in its entirety for a few minutes, while those north and south of the ‘total eclipse path’ witnessed a partial eclipse.  

Throughout the eclipse period, the Moon crossed Proba-2’s field of view twice, appearing as a partial solar eclipse. The satellite flies around 700 km above Earth’s surface in what is called a Sun-synchronous orbit, each orbit lasting around 100 minutes.  

The video was produced from images taken by Proba-2’s SWAP telescope, which observes the Sun in extreme ultraviolet light. At these wavelengths, the turbulent nature of the Sun's surface and corona – the Sun's extended atmosphere – become visible. These measurements have to be made from space, because Earth’s atmosphere doesn’t allow such short wavelengths of light to pass through. 

A total solar eclipse provides a unique opportunity to see the Sun’s corona from Earth's surface, using visible light. As the Moon blocks most of the Sun’s bright light, the faint corona can be discerned. By comparing the SWAP ultraviolet images to what is seen by (visible light) telescopes on Earth, we can learn about the temperature and behaviour of different structures in the corona.  

Other solar missions also made the most of the unique measurement opportunities provided by the eclipse. For example, ESA’s Solar Orbiter was positioned close to the Sun and at a 90-degree angle from Earth’s view throughout the eclipse. This allowed it to complement Earth-based observations by monitoring the Sun’s corona side-on, including any solar eruptions pointing in Earth’s direction.

A total solar eclipse swept across North America yesterday, blocking out the Sun momentarily with parts of the continent plunged into darkness. Geostationary satellites orbiting 36 000 km away captured images of the rare celestial event. 

These images, captured by the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-16), captured the moon’s shadow moving across North America from approximately 16:00 to 23:00 CEST (15:00 to 22:00 BST.)

A total solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth and, for a short period, blocks the face of the Sun, save for a visible ring of light, known as the Sun’s corona. 

The track of the moon’s shadow across Earth’s surface, called the path of totality, spanned across the North American continent – from Mexico to the very eastern tip of Canada.

The GOES series is a collaborative development and acquisition effort between National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA. The GOES-16 (GOES-East) satellite, the first of the series, provides continuous imagery and atmospheric measurements of Earth's western hemisphere and monitors space weather.

The Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission also captured images of the eclipse with its Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer (SLSTR).

The eclipse also acts as a laboratory for researching what happens to weather when the Moon’s shadow passes over. The shadow makes air temperatures drop and can cause clouds to evolve in different ways. Data from GOES, Sentinel-3 and other satellites are now being used to explore these effects.