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| Rosetta's third Earth swingby |
| On 13 November 2009 Rosetta will swing by Earth and pass within 2500 km of Earth's surface. The manoeuvre is the fourth and last in a series of gravity assists and will provide the spacecraft with the required orbital boost to set course for the mission's final destination: comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. |
| Date: 30 Oct 2009 |
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| Opening up a colourful cosmic Jewel Box [heic0913] |
| The combination of images taken by three exceptional telescopes: the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, the ESO Very Large Telescope on Cerro Paranal, the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO's La Silla observatory has allowed the stunning Jewel Box star cluster to be seen in a whole new light. |
| Date: 29 Oct 2009 |
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| CoRoT mission extended until 2013 |
| Satellite operations for the CoRoT mission have been extended until 31 March 2013. The decision by the French Space Agency, CNES, and the mission partners, including ESA, was taken on 23 October at a specially convened meeting at the CNES Headquarters in Paris. |
| Date: 28 Oct 2009 |
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| ESA Council approves new plans for Mars Robotic Exploration Programme |
| ESA Member States have provisionally agreed to plans for ESA's role in an international Mars Robotic Exploration Programme. The decision, taken at a recent ESA Council meeting, foresees a Mars Orbiter with a small static lander, to launch in 2016, and the change of launch date for the ExoMars Rover mission. |
| Date: 16 Oct 2009 |
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| NIRSpec Instrument Engineering Test Unit model is completed |
| The Engineering Test Unit model of NIRSpec - the innovative and pioneering Near Infrared Spectrograph for the James Webb Space Telescope - has been completed by the prime contractor, EADS Astrium, and is ready to be shipped to NASA for testing. |
| Date: 14 Oct 2009 |
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| Cassini Scientist for a Day Competition: International edition |
| The autumn 2009 edition of the 'Cassini Scientist for a Day competition' is international. Students from around the world are invited to submit a 500-word essay explaining their choice of three targets selected to be imaged by Cassini. The competition is open for participating European countries until October 30 2009. |
| Date: 13 Oct 2009 |
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| Sky merger yields sparkling dividends [heic0912] |
| A recent NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image captures what appears to be one very bright and bizarre galaxy, but is actually the result of a pair of spiral galaxies that resemble our own Milky Way smashing together at breakneck speeds. The product of this dramatic collision, called NGC 2623, or Arp 243, is about 250 million light-years away in the constellation of Cancer (the Crab). |
| Date: 13 Oct 2009 |
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| Galilean Nights Astrophotography Competition |
| Galilean Nights, a Cornerstone Project of the International Year of Astronomy to be held from 22 -24 October, will see people from around the world replicating Galileo's observations of the night sky. As part of this project an astrophotography competition, run by the Galilean Nights Task Group in partnership with Europlanet, has set astronomy enthusiasts the challenge of capturing the inspirational nature of our local solar neighbourhood. Competition winners will receive a Celestron SkyScout donated by ESA. Closing date for receipt of entries is 27 October 2009. |
| Date: 13 Oct 2009 |
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| SMART-1 images of new target site of upcoming LCROSS impact |
| ESA's SMART-1 team has released new images of the proposed impact site of NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), after the LCROSS team announced a new target last week. LCROSS will search for water ice on the Moon by making two impacts into the Cabeus crater at the lunar South Pole. The impacts are scheduled for 11:31 and 11:35 am UT on 9 October 2009. |
| Date: 08 Oct 2009 |
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| 'Be an INTEGRAL astronomer' – competition winners announced |
| Students from India and South Africa have been selected as the winners of the European Space Agency's 'Be an INTEGRAL astronomer' competition. |
| Date: 08 Oct 2009 |
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| Mission extensions approved for science missions |
| ESA's Science Programme Committee has approved the extension of mission operations for XMM-Newton, INTEGRAL, Venus Express, Mars Express and Cluster, as well as the ESA support to the operations of HST and SOHO, until 31 December 2012. An additional year of operations has been approved for Planck. |
| Date: 07 Oct 2009 |
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| New Herschel images reveal previously unseen detail in the Milky Way |
| Images from the Herschel observatory, obtained during the performance verification phase, reveal previously unseen detail in a region of the Milky Way near the Galactic Plane. These images demonstrate that the 'SPIRE/PACS parallel mode', an important observing mode for the observatory, is delivering the expected performance. |
| Date: 02 Oct 2009 |
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| First presentation of PRODEX to the Greek scientific community |
| The PRODEX programme and its position within the ESA organisation were presented to the Greek scientific community at the Hellenic Astronomical Conference in Athens, held on 4 September 2009. |
| Date: 01 Oct 2009 |
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| Stripped down: Hubble highlights two galaxies that are losing it [heic0911] |
| A newly released set of images, taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope before the recent Servicing Mission, highlights the ongoing drama in two galaxies in the Virgo Cluster affected by a process known as "ram pressure stripping", which can result in peculiar-looking galaxies. An extremely hot X-ray emitting gas known as the intra-cluster medium lurks between galaxies within clusters. As galaxies move through this intra-cluster medium, strong winds rip through galaxies distorting their shape and even halting star formation. |
| Date: 30 Sep 2009 |
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| MARSIS data reveal new method to measure the magnetic field of Mars |
| Unusual signals detected by the Mars Express MARSIS instrument have been used to determine the magnetic field strength of Mars. In a forthcoming issue of Icarus, Ferzan Akalin and colleagues demonstrate how the MARSIS instrument can be used as a magnetometer - an unexpected application with important consequences for studies of local plasma effects and the Mars Express spacecraft environment. |
| Date: 22 Sep 2009 |
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| Planck first light yields promising results |
| Preliminary results from the Planck First Light Survey, performed to demonstrate the stability of the instruments and the ability to calibrate them over long periods, indicate that the data quality is excellent. This bodes well for the full sky survey that has just begun. |
| Date: 17 Sep 2009 |
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| Smallest exoplanet is shown to be a solid, rocky world |
| The confirmation of the nature of CoRoT-7b as the first rocky planet outside our Solar System marks a significant step forward in the search for Earth-like exoplanets. The detection by CoRoT and follow-up radial velocity measurements with HARPS suggest that this exoplanet, CoRoT-7b, has a density similar to that of Mercury, Venus, Mars and Earth making it only the fifth known terrestrial planet in the Universe. |
| Date: 16 Sep 2009 |
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| The AMAS(E)ing Expedition of 2009 |
| From 1 to 24 August 2009, an international team of scientists participated in the Arctic Mars Analogue Svalbard Expedition (AMASE) in Norway, conducting scientific research and testing instruments for future ESA and NASA Mars robotic missions. |
| Date: 15 Sep 2009 |
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| Rebirth of an icon: Hubble's first images since Servicing Mission 4 [heic0910] |
| Astronomers today declared the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope a fully rejuvenated observatory ready for a new decade of exploration, with the release of observations from four of its six operating science instruments. |
| Date: 09 Sep 2009 |
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| XMM-Newton weighs up a rare white dwarf and finds it to be a heavyweight |
| XMM-Newton observations of the X-ray pulsator RX J0648.0-4418, timed to also cover the phase when the source was expected to be eclipsed by its companion, have resulted in a solid, model-independent mass estimation of this object. It appears to be a rare, ultra-massive white dwarf, whose continued study promises to provide sensitive tests for stellar evolution theories. Sandro Mereghetti and colleagues present these results in the 4 September issue of Science.
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| Date: 04 Sep 2009 |
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