Berlin, Germany (SPX) Jan 25, 2024
In a significant development for the European space sector, PLD Space, a Spain-based aerospace company, has been chosen by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Commission (EC) to participate in the prestigious Flight Ticket Initiative. This program is designed to form a consortium of private launch providers to cater to the space access demands of European institutions. PLD Spa

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jan 25, 2024
In a recent demonstration of NASA's advancing planetary defense capabilities, a small asteroid, approximately 3 feet (1 meter) in size, disintegrated harmlessly over Germany. This event occurred on Sunday, Jan. 21, at 1:32 a.m. local time (CET). Notably, NASA's Scout impact hazard assessment system provided a 95-minute advance warning of the asteroid's impact trajectory, marking this event as th

Washington DC (UPI) Jan 25, 2024
Japan's Smart Lander for Investigating the Moon, or SLIM, landed on the moon Saturday about 180 feet, or little more than half a football field, away from its target landing spot, space officials said on Thursday. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said its landing technology allowed SLIM to land within 330 feet of the targeting landing location, calculating for obstacle avoidance m

Paris (AFP) Jan 25, 2024
The European Space Agency gave the green light to two missions on Thursday, one to detect ripples in spacetime called gravitational waves and another to probe the secrets of Earth's closest neighbouring planet Venus. The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) will become the first mission to study gravitational waves from space, with a planned 2035 launch on an Ariane 6 rocket, the ESA sa

Washington DC (AFP) Jan 26, 2024
NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter, which made history by achieving the first powered flight on another world, has officially ended its nearly three-year mission after sustaining rotor damage during its last outing, the space agency said Thursday. The tissue-box sized aircraft, which hitched a ride to the Red Planet under the belly of the Perseverance rover, first lifted off the surface on A

ESA’s next mission to Venus was officially ‘adopted’ today by the Agency’s Science Programme Committee. EnVision will study Venus from its inner core to its outer atmosphere, giving important new insight into the planet's history, geological activity and climate.

Today, ESA’s Science Programme Committee approved the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) mission, the first scientific endeavour to detect and study gravitational waves from space.

Video: 00:00:20

In November 2023, the A23a mega iceberg set sail after being grounded on the ocean floor for well over 40 years. Now, driven by winds and currents, A23a is heading away from Antarctic waters as seen in this new animation.

The iceberg calved from West Antarctica in 1986 but quickly grounded itself in the Weddell Sea where it remained for over four decades. At around 4000 sq km in area, more than four times the size of New York City, and just over 280 m thick, the berg currently holds the title for world’s largest iceberg.

The animation uses

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope observed the smallest exoplanet where water vapour has been detected in its atmosphere. At only approximately twice Earth’s diameter, the planet GJ 9827d could be an example of potential planets with water-rich atmospheres elsewhere in our galaxy.