ESA Science & Technology - Solar System
News
News
Comet's collapsing cliffs and bouncing boulders
18 September 2019
Scientists analysing the treasure trove of images taken by ESA's Rosetta mission have turned up more evidence for curious bouncing boulders and dramatic cliff collapses.
Hubble reveals latest portrait of Saturn [heic1917]
12 September 2019
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 observed Saturn on 20 June 2019 as the planet made its closest approach to Earth this year, at approximately 1.36 billion kilometres away.
Jupiter mission takes first images of destination – from Earth
22 August 2019As part of preparations for the launch of ESA's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, its navigation camera has been given a unique test: imaging its destination from Earth.
Hubble Showcases New Portrait of Jupiter [heic1914]
8 August 2019The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals the intricate, detailed beauty of Jupiter’s clouds in this new image taken on 27 June 2019. It features the planet’s trademark Great Red Spot and a more intense colour palette in the clouds swirling in the planet’s turbulent atmosphere than seen in previous years.
Dark meets light on Mars
12 August 2019ESA’s Mars Express has captured the cosmic contrast of Terra Cimmeria, a region in the southern highlands of Mars marked by impact craters, water-carved valleys, and sand and dust in numerous chocolate and caramel hues.
Astronomers spy Europa blocking distant star – thanks to Gaia
25 July 2019On 31 March 2017, Jupiter's moon Europa passed in front of a background star – a rare event that was captured for the first time by ground-based telescopes thanks to data provided by ESA's Gaia spacecraft.
Latest Articles
Latest Articles
Cluster and XMM-Newton pave the way for SMILE
27 August 2019The Solar wind-Magnetosphere-Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE) mission is still four years away from launch, but scientists are already using existing ESA satellites, such as the XMM-Newton X-ray observatory and the Cluster mission studying Earth's magnetosphere, to pave the way for this pioneering venture.
How Venus and Mars can teach us about Earth
13 May 2019One has a thick poisonous atmosphere, one has hardly any atmosphere at all, and one is just right for life to flourish – but it wasn't always that way. The atmospheres of our two neighbours Venus and Mars can teach us a lot about the past and future scenarios for our own planet.
Spacecraft Testing
Spacecraft Testing
#5: Electric and magnetic fields under control for Solar Orbiter
23 September 2019
An important stage in the development of ESA's Solar Orbiter mission was completed between May and June, when a series of tests to validate the electromagnetic compatibility and magnetic properties was carried out on the spacecraft's flight model.
#4: JUICE engineering model ready for testing
11 December 2018The JUICE engineering model spacecraft test readiness review was completed successfully on 2 October, and the first engineering model instruments are now being delivered and tested.
#14: CHEOPS - withstanding the sound of launch and avoiding radio interference
17 October 2018For the CHEOPS mission, September was a busy month of acoustic noise testing and Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) testing at ESA's technical centre in the Netherlands.
Watch online
Watch online
Watch the BepiColombo launch replay
20 October 2018BepiColombo lifted off from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on an Ariane 5 rocket at 01:45 GMT on 20 October. Watch the replay of the launch coverage live from the Spaceport.
