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Your interactive gateway to the most captivating stories and stunning visuals from ESA

Washington (AFP) Sept 30, 2024
The SpaceX crew that will ferry back two astronauts stranded on the International Space Station docked with the orbiting laboratory Sunday, a live stream of the mission showed. The Falcon 9 rocket took off at 1:17 pm (1717 GMT) from Cape Canaveral, Florida on Saturday, with the Crew-9 mission on a Dragon spacecraft making contact with the ISS at 5:30 pm Sunday. After docking was complete

London, UK (SPX) Sep 26, 2024
Scientists from the University of Warwick have revealed a detailed "map" of distant planets, highlighting a newly identified area in deep space called the Neptunian Ridge. This ridge separates two distinct regions, known as the Neptunian desert and the Neptunian savannah. The team, including researchers from Warwick and other institutions, focused on Neptunian exoplanets, which share simil

Paris, France (SPX) Sep 26, 2024
In a remarkable discovery, astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have identified a galaxy with an unusual light pattern, which may offer critical insights into the evolution of the first stars in the Universe. The galaxy, named GS-NDG-9422 (9422), is situated about one billion years after the Big Bang and could represent a key stage in galactic development, bridging the g

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Sep 26, 2024
As NASA advances toward establishing a long-term presence on the Moon through the Artemis campaign, the ability to move cargo from landers to the lunar surface autonomously has become a critical need. This cargo, referred to as payloads, could include anything from small scientific instruments to large components for building lunar infrastructure. However, with no crew on the surface to manage t

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Sep 26, 2024
Mars' ancient landscape was shaped by wind and water, with these forces sculpting the planet's sand and sediment into patterns such as dunes and ripples, known as bedforms. Over billions of years, many of these formations hardened into rock, becoming what scientists call paleo-bedforms. These features, largely frozen in time, have only been altered by slow erosion from wind, ancient lava flows,

Tucson AZ (SPX) Sep 26, 2024
It's been a year since NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft successfully delivered the largest-ever asteroid sample to Earth on Sept. 24, 2023. Since then, intriguing clues about the early solar system and potential origins of life on Earth have emerged from study of the sample, under the leadership of OSIRIS-REx principal investigator Dante Lauretta, a Regents Professor of planetary sciences at t

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Sep 26, 2024
The International Space Station (ISS) is poised to enhance its environmental monitoring capabilities with a new payload supported by the ISS National Laboratory and developed by Airbus U.S. Space and Defense, Inc. Installed on the Bartolomeo platform, the system aims to broaden access to the station's unique perspective for research and technology demonstrations. "Airbus is improving our a

Sydney, Australia (SPX) Sep 26, 2024
CAS Space, a rocket manufacturing company owned by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has completed the fourth flight of its Kinetica 1 rocket model on Wednesday morning. The rocket, designated Kinetica 1-Y4, launched at 7:33 am from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert, successfully placing five satellites into orbit. The flight marked the latest in the series, with "Y4" i

Sydney, Australia (SPX) Sep 26, 2024
Chinese rocket startup Deep Blue Aerospace (Deep Blue) has announced plans for another high-altitude vertical recovery test in November, following a recent setback with its reusable rocket, Nebula-1. The vehicle encountered an issue during the final landing phase of a test flight, resulting in damage to its structure. Nebula-1, powered by a liquid oxygen and kerosene engine, completed 10 o