Scientists are harnessing data from ESA’s Swarm mission and ground-based instruments to precisely measure the strength and duration of intense upper-atmosphere heating – dramatic ‘hot flushes’ triggered by solar storms that also cause Earth’s tenuous outer atmospheric layers to expand rapidly.

This research, funded by ESA's Earth Observation FutureEO Science for Society initiative, offers crucial insights into how geomagnetic activity affects satellite orbits and space weather conditions.

Asteroid 2024 YR4 made headlines earlier this year when its probability of impacting Earth in 2032 rose as high as 3%. While an Earth impact has now been ruled out, the asteroid’s story continues.

The final glimpse of the asteroid as it faded out of view of humankind’s most powerful telescopes left it with a 4% chance of colliding with the Moon on 22 December 2032.

The likelihood of a lunar impact will now remain stable until the asteroid returns to view in mid-2028. In this FAQ, find out why we are left with this lingering uncertainty and how

An agreement between the United States and Sweden brings Firefly Aerospace one step closer to launching its Alpha rocket from a Swedish spaceport.

On 26 June 2025 ESA project astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski from Poland and his crewmates arrived to the International Space Station on the Axiom-4 mission (Ax-4).
The Polish project astronaut is the second of a new generation of European astronauts to fly on a commercial human spaceflight opportunity with Axiom Space.
Sponsored by the Polish government and supported by ESA, the Polish Ministry of Economic Development and Technology (MRiT), and the Polish Space Agency (POLSA), the mission will include an ambitious technological and scientific programme with several experiments led by ESA and proposed by the Polish space industry.

In this week’s episode of Space Minds David Ariosto sits down Nathalie Cabrol, Director of the Carl Sagan Center at the SETI Institute who explains why the Red Planet may hold answers about extraterrestrial life as well as our own origins.

At the Living Planet Symposium, attendees have been hearing how ESA’s Next Generation Gravity Mission could provide the first opportunity to directly track a vital ocean circulation system that warms our planet – but is now weakening, risking a possible collapse with far-reaching consequences.