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A stunning new image of the Sculptor Galaxy, located 11 million light-years away, painted in thousands of colors by the VLT, reveals the intricacies of galactic systems.

Video: 00:17:03

Watch the replay of the ESA-European Commission press conference with Josef Aschbacher, Director General of ESA, and Andrius Kubilius, EU Commissioner for Defence and Space, held at the Paris Air Show 2025 (Le Bourget) on 18 June 2025.

Download the transcript. 

Video: 00:12:58

Watch the replay of the call between Josef Aschbacher, ESA Director General, Andrius Kubilius, EU Commissioner for Defence and Space, and Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski, ESA project astronaut. This call took place at the Paris Air Show 2025 (Le Bourget) on 18 June. Project astronaut Uznański-Wiśniewski joined from quarantine ahead of the upcoming Ignis mission mission.

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 Ignis mission features an ambitious technological and scientific programme. It includes several experiments proposed by the Polish space industry and developed in cooperation with ESA, along with additional ESA-led experiments.

Food microbiologists explain how to ensure different proteins, such as beef, chicken and pork, are prepared safely

We’ve all heard the saying “you are what you eat”—especially when it comes to gut health. But what if your workout matters just as much as your diet?

Satellite streaks are a blight on astronomy. How much are observations by the Vera Rubin super telescope going to suffer from this contamination?

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched 28 Starlink internet satellites into low Earth orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Wednesday, June 18, 2025.

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is releasing its first images on 23 June, showing us galaxies as we’ve never seen them before. Here’s how you can join a party to see those shots in full definition

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is releasing its first images on 23 June, showing us galaxies as we’ve never seen them before. Here’s how you can join a party to see those shots in full definition

Meteorologists say that in the next decade, summer daytime temperatures above 28°C could persist for more than a month, with spikes as high as 46.6°C possible under today’s climate conditions

Meteorologists say that in the next decade, summer daytime temperatures above 28°C could persist for more than a month, with spikes as high as 46.6°C possible under today’s climate conditions

The discovery of a prehistoric tail-shedding reptile reveals more about large lizard life and lineage during the Late Cretaceous Epoch

The discovery of a prehistoric tail-shedding reptile reveals more about large lizard life and lineage during the Late Cretaceous Epoch

We don't know what dark matter is, but that doesn't stop astronomers from using it to their advantage. Dark matter is part of what makes gravitational lensing so effective. Astronomers expect the Roman Space Telescope to find 160,000 gravitational lenses, and dark matter makes a crucial contribution to these lenses.

When astronauts finally reach Mars, they'll face a unique challenge: walking and working in gravity that's only 37% as strong as Earth's. After spending months in the weightlessness of space, their weakened muscles and bones will struggle to cope with even this reduced gravity. Now, researchers at the University of Bristol have developed a promising solution; a soft, wearable exosuit powered by inflatable "bubble muscles."

When the Apollo astronauts landed on the Moon, they discovered drifts of tiny brilliant orange glass beads glittering across the surface. Each one less than 1 mm across and formed about 3.6 billion years ago. These microscopic treasures, each smaller than a pinhead, had been hiding their secrets for billions of years. Now, cutting edge technology has finally cracked the mystery: they're perfect time capsules from the Moon's explosive volcanic past, frozen droplets of ancient lava that solidified instantly in the airless void recording the history of the Moon.

The Hubble Deep Field revolutionised astronomy by staring at a seemingly empty patch of sky for thousands of hours, unveiling a cosmos teeming with distant galaxies. But even Hubble can't peer back far enough to witness the universe's first moment of illumination; the Cosmic Dawn, when primordial darkness gave way to starlight. Now, the Square Kilometre Array promises to shatter that barrier. In a groundbreaking simulation, researchers have modelled 1000 hours of SKA observations, creating astronomy's next great deep field, one designed to capture the universe's very first sunrise.

The ecliptic is the apparent path that the Sun follows during a year. It's an imaginary line that the planets follow, with some small deviations, around the Sun. Spacecraft find it easier to follow the ecliptic because it's generally more energy efficient. However, the Solar Orbiter isn't on the ecliptic and it's giving us our first up-close looks at the Sun's poles.

For most of us, dust is just something we have to clean up. For astronomers, interstellar dust is a hindrance when they want to study distant objects. However, recent James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observations of a distant galaxy are changing that. This infrared-sensitive observatory is letting them find a way to use dust to understand the evolution of early galaxies. In addition, it uncovered a special property of that galaxy's ice-covered dust, indicating it could be similar to the materials that formed our Solar System.

Most scientists agree that supernova explosions have affected Earth's climate, though the details are not all clear. They likely cooled the climate several times in the last several thousand years, just as humanity was becoming established around the world. The evidence is in telescopes and tree rings.