Week in images: 19-23 June 2023

Discover our week through the lens

ESA will be broadcasting live as the Euclid space telescope, which will explore the dark Universe, is targeted to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida, USA, at 11:11 local time / 15:11 UTC / 17:11 CEST on Saturday 1 July 2023. A back-up launch date of Sunday 2 July 2023 is foreseen.

Here’s how to follow the launch online.

All times CEST. Times subject to change at short notice

Geneva, Switzerland (SPX) Jun 23, 2023
The cosmos is a unique laboratory for testing the laws of physics, in particular those of Euler and Einstein. Euler described the movements of celestial objects, while Einstein described the way in which celestial objects distort the Universe. Since the discovery of dark matter and the acceleration of the Universe's expansion, the validity of their equations has been put to the test: are they ca

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jun 23, 2023
Apex, the Los Angeles-based spacecraft mass manufacturing company, announced its Series A fundraising round and customers flying on its first Aries satellite bus. Apex's $16M Series A funding round, which brings the company's total funding to over $27M, was led by venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz and Shield Capital. Apex will use the additional funding to open a new, 50,000 sq ft

Ottawa, Canada (SPX) Jun 23, 2023
Evidence is mounting that astronauts are more susceptible to infections while in space. For example, astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) commonly suffer from skin rashes, as well as respiratory and non-respiratory diseases. Astronauts are also known to shed more live virus particles, for example Epstein-Barr virus, varicella-zoster responsible for shingles, herpes-simplex-1

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jun 21, 2023
Time, it never seems to pass at a constant rate. Today is summer solstice here in the northern hemisphere on Earth; the longest "day" of the year. It was only fitting time was at the forefront of planning today, particularly at the onset. For starters, in order to better synchronize with Curiosity's workday, our shifts started later than usual in order to permit requisite data from the pre

Washington DC (SPX) Jun 23, 2023
Astronomers studying a powerful gamma-ray burst (GRB) with the Gemini South telescope, operated by NSF's NOIRLab, may have detected a never-before-seen way to destroy a star. Unlike most GRBs, which are caused by exploding massive stars or the chance mergers of neutron stars, astronomers have concluded that this GRB came instead from the collision of stars or stellar remnants in the jam-packed e

Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Jun 23, 2023
Isotope ratios found in meteorites suggest that a supernova exploded nearby while the Sun and Solar System were still forming. But the blast wave from a supernova that close could have potentially destroyed the nascent Solar System. New calculations shows that a filament of molecular gas, which is the birth cocoon of the Solar System, aided the capture of the isotopes found in the meteorites, wh

Work to develop a reusable engine for European rockets is progressing, with full ignition of an early prototype of Prometheus. These images were taken on 22 June 2023 at ArianeGroup’s test facility in Vernon, France during a 12-second burn. 

Apex, a startup with plans to mass-manufacture satellite buses, has raised $16 million to fund development of its first large-scale factory.