News archive

News archive

By pinning down, for the first time, the three-dimensional motions of individual stars in the nearby Sculptor dwarf galaxy, astronomers have shed new light on the distribution of invisible dark matter that pervades the galaxy.
Published: 27 November 2017
It's the perfect meeting of old and new. Astronomers have combined the latest data from ESA's Gaia mission with a simple analysis technique from the 18th century to discover a massive star cluster that had previously escaped detection. Now, subsequent investigations are helping reveal the star-forming history of our Galaxy, the Milky Way.
Published: 15 November 2017
What seemed at first like a rare instance of a huge, ancient galaxy revealed itself to be an even rarer pair of extremely massive galaxies, seen on the brink of merging when the Universe was only a billion years old.
Published: 13 November 2017
Gas giant Jupiter, organic molecules in star-forming clouds and baby galaxies in the distant Universe are among the first targets for which data will be immediately available from the James Webb Space Telescope once it begins casting its powerful gaze on the Universe in 2019.
Published: 13 November 2017
ESA is offering graphic designers and artists a unique opportunity to feature their work on the rocket carrying the CHEOPS satellite.
Published: 2 November 2017
Using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered that the brightest galaxies within galaxy clusters "wobble" relative to the cluster's centre of mass. This unexpected result is inconsistent with predictions made by the current standard model of dark matter.
Published: 26 October 2017
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has observed for the first time the source of a gravitational wave, created by the merger of two neutron stars. This merger created a kilonova – an object predicted by theory decades ago – that ejects heavy elements such as gold and platinum into space.
Published: 16 October 2017
ESA's INTEGRAL satellite recently played a crucial role in discovering the flash of gamma rays linked to the gravitational waves released by the collision of two neutron stars.
Published: 16 October 2017
This oddly-shaped galactic spectacle is bursting with brand new stars. The pink fireworks in this image taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope are regions of intense star formation, triggered by a cosmic-scale collision. The huge galaxy in this image, NGC 4490, has a smaller galaxy in its gravitational grip and is feeling the strain.
Published: 28 September 2017
The Herschel mission, a trailblazing space observatory that provided a unique view of our cosmos during its almost four years of operations, leaves a legacy of treasured data, thousands of scientific papers, as well as a new generation of astronomers who cut their professional teeth on this remarkable endeavour.
Published: 21 September 2017
Delving deep into the history of our cosmos, the Herschel Space Observatory scrutinised hundreds of thousands of star-forming galaxies, peering back in time to when the Universe was less than one billion years old.
Published: 20 September 2017
During almost four years of observing the cosmos, the Herschel Space Observatory traced out the presence of water.
Published: 19 September 2017
Surveying the sky for almost four years to observe the glow of cold cosmic dust embedded in interstellar clouds of gas, the Herschel Space Observatory has provided astronomers with an unprecedented glimpse into the stellar cradles of our Galaxy.
Published: 18 September 2017
Astronomers have discovered that the well-studied exoplanet WASP-12b reflects almost no light, making it appear essentially pitch black. This discovery sheds new light on the atmospheric composition of the planet and also refutes previous hypotheses about WASP-12b's atmosphere. The results are also in stark contrast to observations of another...
Published: 14 September 2017
An international team of astronomers used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to estimate whether there might be water on the seven earth-sized planets orbiting the nearby dwarf star TRAPPIST-1. The results suggest that the outer planets of the system, including the three planets within the habitable zone, might still harbour substantial amounts...
Published: 31 August 2017
Proposals are solicited for observations with XMM-Newton in response to the seventeenth Announcement of Opportunity, AO-17, issued 22 August 2017. This AO covers the period May 2018 to April 2019 and is open to proposers from all over the world. The deadline for proposals is 6 October 2017 (12:00 UTC).
Published: 22 August 2017
While surveying the positions of over a billion stars, ESA's Gaia mission is also measuring their colour, a key diagnostic to study the physical properties of stars. A new image provides a preview of Gaia's first full-colour all-sky map, which will be unleashed in its highest resolution with the next data release in 2018.
Published: 16 August 2017
The gravitational dance between two galaxies in our local neighbourhood has led to intriguing visual features in both as witnessed in this new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image. The tiny NGC 1510 and its colossal neighbour NGC 1512 are at the beginning of a lengthy merger, a crucial process in galaxy evolution.
Published: 27 July 2017
With the help of software that mimics a human brain, ESA's Gaia satellite spotted six stars zipping at high speed from the centre of our Galaxy to its outskirts. This could provide key information about some of the most obscure regions of the Milky Way.
Published: 26 June 2017
Two new catalogues, based on data from ESA's Herschel Space Observatory, have been released to the scientific community. The point source catalogues are examples of a new type of data product from two of Herschel's instruments, SPIRE and PACS. These catalogues are part of the lasting legacy of the Herschel mission, and will further facilitate...
Published: 20 June 2017
29-Mar-2024 00:38 UT

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