Comet K1, whose full name is Comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS), had just passed its closest approach to the Sun and was heading out of the Solar System. Though it had been intact just days before, K1 fragmented into at least four pieces while the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope was watching. The odds of that happening while Hubble viewed the comet are extraordinarily miniscule.

Thanks to the success of the Arctic Weather Satellite prototype and Eumetsat’s recent greenlight to develop a full constellation of similar satellites called Sterna, the European Space Agency has awarded OHB Sweden with the contract to build 20 satellites.

This marks a major step toward better monitoring rapidly evolving weather, improving forecasts of severe events in vulnerable regions such as the Mediterranean, and closing critical data gaps over the Arctic – the fastest-warming region on Earth and a key driver of Europe’s weather systems.

ESA Impact: our story so far this year

With more than 400 positions to be published in 2026, the European Space Agency has launched a recruitment drive to support ESA’s programmes, missions and strategic initiatives following the 2025 Ministerial Council in Bremen. To help make these projects a reality, we will be recruiting many new colleagues in engineering and science, as well as support services! Your next big opportunity could be here, so read on to find out more. You can also set up a job alert to be the first one to know when opportunities are published.   

A successful deep-space manoeuvre has put ESA’s Hera spacecraft on course for its rendezvous with the Didymos binary asteroid system later this year.