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| Call for declaration of Interest in Science Instrumentation - Cosmic Vision Mission: STE-QUEST |
| This Call for declaration of Interest in Science Instrumentation (CISI) is open to the European science community for enabling assessment studies of the science instruments of the STE-QUEST mission. STE-QUEST has been selected for assessment following the ESA Call for a Medium-size M3 mission opportunity in the Cosmic Vision (CV) 2015-2025 plan. The European science community is invited to propose dedicated studies on science instrumentation that would potentially be provided by the ESA Member States, should the mission be adopted.
The Proposal submission deadline is 4 November 2011, at 14:00 CET. |
| Date: 26 Sep 2011 |
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| Call for declaration of Interest in Science Instrumentation - Cosmic Vision Mission: Exoplanet Characterisation Observatory (EChO) |
This Call for declaration of Interest in Science Instrumentation (CISI) is open to the European science community for enabling assessment studies of the science instruments of the EChO mission. EChO, the Exoplanet Characterisation Observatory, has been selected for assessment following the ESA Call for a Medium-size M3 mission opportunity in the Cosmic Vision (CV) 2015-2025 plan. The European science community is invited to propose dedicated studies on science instrumentation that would potentially be provided by the ESA Member States, should the mission be adopted. The proposal submission deadline is 4 November 2011, at 14:00 CET. |
| Date: 26 Sep 2011 |
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| Herschel probes the dusty history of a giant star |
| About 5 thousand million years from now, our Sun will expand into a red giant, swelling to such a size that it may swallow the Earth. It will then begin to shed huge amounts of dust, surrounding itself with an expanding circumstellar envelope (CSE) that ultimately will become a planetary nebula. New insights into this process have been revealed by ESA's Herschel Space Observatory, which is providing unprecedented images of the complex, outer structure of a nearby CSE. |
| Date: 20 Sep 2011 |
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| BepiColombo Mercury explorer to be launched on Ariane |
| Reaching one of the most mysterious planets in our Solar System takes enormous power and finesse. ESA has now firmly entrusted its precious Mercury explorer to Europe's largest rocket - the Ariane 5.
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| Date: 15 Sep 2011 |
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| Gaia mirrors ready to shine |
| ESA's Gaia mission has passed another major milestone after the completion of 10 state-of-the-art mirrors that will be used to measure the precise positions of a billion stars. With the delivery of the last of these complex mirrors, Europe has further reinforced its position as the world leader in silicon carbide mirror technology. |
| Date: 15 Sep 2011 |
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| Herschel reveals how most stars formed in the Universe |
| Do galaxies form their stars through violent and tumultuous merging events or rather via more steady and gentle processes? Scrutinising thousands of galaxies across the past 11 billion years of cosmic history with ESA's Herschel Space Observatory, astronomers have, for the first time, been able to answer this long-standing question. Contrary to previous belief, the new data reveal that most of the stars ever formed in the history of the Universe have done so quietly. |
| Date: 13 Sep 2011 |
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| Ultrafast substorm auroras explained |
| From time to time, sudden releases of energy in Earth's magnetosphere lead to major disturbances that result in bright auroral displays over the planet's polar regions. These auroras are caused by a phenomenon known as a geomagnetic substorm. The precise cause of these substorms has been debated for decades, but new computer simulations, allied to analysis of data from ESA's Cluster spacecraft, are now filling in many of the missing pieces in the puzzle. |
| Date: 06 Sep 2011 |
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| Suzaku 7th Announcement of Opportunity |
| The Seventh European Announcement of Opportunity for observations to be performed with Suzaku between April 2012 and March 2013 is now open. Scientists belonging to institutions within ESA Member States are invited to respond. The deadline for receipt of proposals is 10 November 2011 at 16:30 CET. |
| Date: 01 Sep 2011 |
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| Phobos-Soil (Phobos-Grunt) Announcement of Opportunity for Guest Investigators |
| This Announcement of Opportunity (AO) solicits research proposals for scientific analysis of data, or theoretical and/or modelling studies supported by data, from the Russian Phobos-Soil (Phobos-Grunt) mission, through participation in the Phobos-Soil Guest Investigator Programme.
The deadline for proposal submissions is 30 November 2011. |
| Date: 01 Sep 2011 |
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| Hubble movies provide unprecedented view of supersonic jets from young stars [heic1113] |
| Astronomers have combined two decades of Hubble observations to make unprecedented movies revealing never-before-seen details of the birth pangs of new stars. This sheds new light on how stars like the Sun form. |
| Date: 31 Aug 2011 |
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| XMM-Newton Announcement of Opportunity (AO-11) |
| Proposals are solicited for observations with XMM-Newton in response to the eleventh Announcement of Opportunity, AO-11, issued 23 August 2011. This AO covers the period May 2012 to April 2013 and is open to proposers from all over the world. |
| Date: 23 Aug 2011 |
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| First JWST instrument finishes testing |
| A pioneering instrument for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has completed testing in the UK. MIRI is a key European contribution to the mission, which will be a space telescope with a mirror seven times bigger in area than that of the Hubble Space Telescope. |
| Date: 18 Aug 2011 |
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| INTEGRAL observations suggest unified model for AGN requires a rethink |
| Scrutinising a large sample of Active Galactic Nuclei with INTEGRAL, astronomers have found that, unexpectedly, sources affected by stronger absorption at lower energies show an excess emission in the hard X-ray band when compared to their less obscured counterparts. The excess is likely due to reflection of X-rays off the same dense clouds responsible for absorption. Unaccounted for in the unified paradigm of Active Galactic Nuclei, the finding calls for a rethinking of some of this model's facets. The reflected radiation could also represent the long-sought missing part of the Cosmic X-ray Background. |
| Date: 02 Aug 2011 |
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| Herschel uncovers 'hidden' oxygen in Orion |
| Herschel has found the first robust evidence of molecular oxygen in the Orion Nebula. The observed abundance is ten times larger than indicated by previous observations of other molecular clouds, but is still well below theoretical expectations. The results suggest that, in special circumstances, the heat from newborn stars can liberate oxygen frozen out on dust grains, thus increasing the amount of molecular oxygen able to form in warm, dense gas clouds. |
| Date: 01 Aug 2011 |
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| Herschel confirms Enceladus as primary water supply for Saturn's atmosphere |
| Observing Saturn, Herschel has detected evidence of water molecules in a huge torus surrounding the planet and centred on the orbit of its small moon, Enceladus. The water plumes on Enceladus, which were detected by the Cassini-Huygens mission, inject the water into the torus and part of it eventually precipitates into Saturn's atmosphere. The new study has identified Enceladus as the primary water supply to Saturn's upper atmosphere; this is the first example in the Solar System of a moon directly influencing the atmosphere of its host planet. |
| Date: 26 Jul 2011 |
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| Four unusual views of the Andromeda Galaxy [heic1112] |
| The Andromeda Galaxy is revealed in unprecedented detail in four archive observations from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. They show stars and structure in the galaxy's disc, the halo of stars that surrounds it, and a stream of stars left by a companion galaxy as it was torn apart and pulled in by the galaxy's gravitational forces. |
| Date: 21 Jul 2011 |
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| Stardust in our backyard provides new clues to galaxy evolution |
| New data from ESA's Herschel Space Observatory have revealed surprisingly large amounts of cold dust in the remnant of the famous supernova SN1987A, which is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a neighbouring galaxy of the Milky Way, and was first observed 24 years ago. With this discovery, the astronomers confirm that supernovae are able to produce significant quantities of dust over very short time scales. This may help explain previous observations, by Herschel and other observatories, of abundant dust in the early Universe as seen in high-redshift galaxies. The results are published online today in Science Express. |
| Date: 07 Jul 2011 |
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| Billion pixel Gaia camera starts to take shape |
| Another milestone in the development of Gaia, ESA's ultra-sensitive space astrometry mission, was passed on 1 June when the 106 electronic detectors of its billion pixel camera were assembled like a large mosaic for the first time. |
| Date: 06 Jul 2011 |
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| Cluster observes jet braking and plasma heating |
| High speed plasma flows, often referred to as jets, are extremely common across the Universe. Such jets are observed in Earth's magnetosphere, in solar flares, and near various objects powered by black holes. New insights into the processes that modify these streams of ionised particles have been provided by rare in situ measurements of plasma flows made by ESA's Cluster spacecraft. |
| Date: 04 Jul 2011 |
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| INTEGRAL challenges physics beyond Einstein |
| ESA's INTEGRAL gamma-ray observatory has provided results that will dramatically affect the search for physics beyond Einstein. It has shown that any underlying quantum 'graininess' of space must be at much smaller scales than previously predicted. |
| Date: 30 Jun 2011 |
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