ESA Science & Technology - Science Results

Supernova remnant menagerie [heic0507]

Images taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 on board Hubble were combined to create a detailed view of the supernova remnant N 63A, located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, showing the impact on the ambient gas clouds.

Published: 7 June 2005

INTEGRAL Observations of the Galactic Centre Region

Among INTEGRAL's science goals is the study of objects residing at the centre of our galaxy, and the physical processes at play in this region.

Published: 25 May 2005

First MARSIS boom successfully deployed

Thanks to a manoeuvre performed on 10 May 2005 at 19:20 UT, ESA flight controllers have successfully completed the deployment of the first boom of the MARSIS radar on board ESA's Mars Express spacecraft.

Published: 11 May 2005

Calming Effect of a Solar Storm

New results from simulations based on Cluster data are providing insight in the processes that transfer solar wind plasma into the Earth's magnetotail when the Interplanetary Magnetic Field is strongly northward oriented.

Published: 28 April 2005

Solar Wind Origin in Coronal Funnels

Based on observations by the ESA/NASA SOHO mission a Chinese-German team of scientists have identified the magnetic structures in the solar corona where the fast solar wind originates.

Published: 22 April 2005

The Distortion of the Heliosphere: our Interstellar Magnetic Compass

Measurements by the SWAN instrument onboard SOHO, have shown that the heliosphere, the solar wind filled volume which prevents the solar system from getting embedded in the local (ambient) interstellar medium is not axi-symmetrical, but is distorted, very likely under the effect of the local galactic magnetic field.

Published: 14 March 2005

Jupiter: A cloudy mirror for the Sun?

Scientists using XMM-Newton have discovered an x-ray glow on Jupiter due to x-rays from the Sun being reflected back off the planet's atmosphere.

Published: 7 March 2005

Distant Galaxies Show a Young Universe

Using ESA's XMM-Newton observatory and the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, scientists have discovered the most distant massive structure in the Universe.

Published: 2 March 2005

Newly Seen Force May Help Gravity in Star Formation

Scientists have pierced through a dusty stellar nursery to capture the earliest and most detailed view of a collapsing gas cloud turning into a star, analogous to a baby's first ultrasound.

Published: 1 March 2005

VLT Observations of Titan

Around the time of the descent of the Huygens probe in Titan's atmosphere on 15 January 2005, ground based observations of Saturn's largest moon were made with the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile during the nights from 14-16 January.

Published: 1 March 2005

Black Holes in a radar trap

Scientists using XMM-Newton have observed a relativistic Fe line in the mean X-ray spectra of type-1 and type-2 active galactic nuclei.

Published: 23 February 2005

Cluster will become the first multi-scale mission

On 10 February, the ESA Science Programme Committee approved unanimously the extension of the Cluster mission, pushing back the end date from December 2005 to December 2009.

Published: 18 February 2005

Saturn's aurorae defy scientists' expectations [heic0504]

The dancing light of the aurorae on Saturn behaves in ways different from how scientists have thought possible for the last 25 years. New research by a team of US and European planetary scientists led by John Clarke of Boston University, USA, has overturned theories about how Saturn's magnetic field behaves and how its aurorae are generated.

Published: 17 February 2005