Gaia finds candidates for interstellar 'Oumuamua's home 25 September 2018 Using data from ESA's Gaia stellar surveyor, astronomers have identified four stars that are possible places of origin of 'Oumuamua, an interstellar object spotted during a brief visit to our Solar System in 2017. Read more

Dust storms on Titan spotted by Cassini for the first time 24 September 2018 Data from the international Cassini spacecraft that explored Saturn and its moons between 2004 and 2017 has revealed what appear to be giant dust storms in equatorial regions of Titan. Read more

Gaia hints at our Galaxy's turbulent life 19 September 2018 ESA's star mapping mission, Gaia, has shown our Milky Way galaxy is still enduring the effects of a near collision that set millions of stars moving like ripples on a pond. Read more

BUFFALO charges towards the earliest galaxies [heic1816] 13 September 2018 The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has started a new mission to shed light on the evolution of the earliest galaxies in the Universe. The BUFFALO survey will observe six massive galaxy clusters and their surroundings. The first observations show the galaxy cluster Abell 370 and a host of magnified, gravitationally lensed galaxies around it. Read more

Gaia's stellar family portrait 14 May 2018 Explore Gaia's second data release with this interactive visualisation of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, the family portrait of stars in our Milky Way. Read more

Antenna's European journey to join Solar Orbiter 20 September 2018 On any spacecraft, the antennas are key pieces of hardware, being the all-important links with Earth. After several years of development, the main communications dish on ESA's Solar Orbiter is now ready to be integrated with the pioneering spacecraft. Read more

#13: CHEOPS – chilled and checked, shaken and not stirred 31 August 2018 This summer, the CHEOPS satellite breezed through thermal tests in France and vibration tests in Switzerland, demonstrating that it is ready to operate in the extreme cold of space and also fit to withstand the mechanical stresses of launch. Read more

#1: JUICE comes in from extreme temperature test 07 June 2018 This is the first entry in the JUICE Test Campaign Journal, a series of articles covering the main events during testing of the Thermal Development Model (TDM), the Engineering Model (EM) and the Proto-Flight Model (PFM) of the spacecraft. The mission is scheduled to launch in 2022 to investigate the Jupiter system. Read more

XMM-Newton Announcement of Opportunity (AO-18) 21 August 2018 Proposals are solicited for observations with XMM-Newton in response to the eighteenth Announcement of Opportunity, AO-18, issued 21 August 2018. This AO covers the period May 2019 to April 2020 and is open to proposers from all over the world. The deadline for proposal submission is 5 October 2018, 12:00 UTC. Read more

Call for a Fast (F) mission opportunity in ESA's Science Programme 16 July 2018 The ESA Director of Science solicits proposals from the scientific community in ESA Member States for a Fast (F) mission to be launched in the 2026-2028 timeframe. Read more

Günther Hasinger appointed as ESA Director of Science 14 December 2017 The Council of the European Space Agency announced the appointment of Günther Hasinger as the next Director of Science. He will succeed Alvaro Giménez, who has served in the position since 2011. Read more