Back in 2023, we reported on Solar Orbiter’s discovery of tiny jets near the Sun’s south pole that could be powering the solar wind. The team behind this research has now used even more data from the European Space Agency’s prolific solar mission to confirm that these jets exist all over dark patches in the Sun’s atmosphere, and that they really are a source of not only fast but also slow solar wind.

The newfound jets can be seen in this sped-up video as hair-like wisps that flash very briefly, for example within the circled regions of the

Today, ESA, the Finnish government and the Finnish Meteorological Institute took the initial steps towards establishing a ‘supersite’ for Earth observation calibration and validation in Sodankylä in Finnish Lapland.

Envisaged as a joint investment, this world-class site would bring benefits to both ESA, by helping to further ensure satellites deliver accurate data over high latitude environments, and to Finland by providing Finnish businesses with new opportunities to develop and test environmental sensors and technology.

Using data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission, scientists have found a huge exoplanet and a brown dwarf. This is the first time a planet has been uniquely discovered by Gaia’s ability to sense the gravitational tug or ‘wobble’ the planet induces on a star. Both the planet and brown dwarf are orbiting low-mass stars, a scenario thought to be extremely rare.

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Access the related animations: Gaia-4b / Gaia-5b

Access the related broadcast quality video material.