When considering the implications of thawing permafrost, our initial worries are likely to turn to the major issue of methane being released into the atmosphere and exacerbating global warming or issues for local communities as the ground and infrastructure become unstable. While this is bad enough, new research reveals that the potential effects of permafrost thaw could also pose serious health threats.

As part of the ESA–NASA Arctic Methane and Permafrost Challenge, new research has revealed that rapidly thawing permafrost in the Arctic has the potential to release antibiotic-resistant bacteria, undiscovered viruses and even radioactive waste from Cold War nuclear

On this day, twenty years ago, ESA’s first small satellite, Proba-1 (Project for On Board Autonomy), was launched with just one goal – to prove technologies in space.

Week in images: 18 - 22 October 2021

Discover our week through the lens

Video: 00:04:28

Time lapse of the stacking of the Orion spacecraft on top of the fully assembled Space Launch System (SLS) rocket at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, on 21 October 2021, in preparation for the uncrewed Artemis I launch.

For Artemis I, the European Service Module will take the spacecraft more than 64 000 km beyond the Moon in a test flight to demonstrate its capabilities.

The European Service Module is ESA’s contribution to NASA’s Orion spacecraft that will send astronauts to the Moon and beyond. It provides electricity, water, oxygen and nitrogen as well as keeping the spacecraft at the right temperature

Washington (AFP) Oct 20, 2021
US authorities unveiled Wednesday long-delayed new rules aimed at clamping down on export to nations like Russia and China of hacking technology amid a sharp uptick in cyberattacks globally. The rules, which are set to go into force in 90 days, would prevent the sale of certain software or devices to a list of countries unless approved by a bureau of the Commerce Department. "The United

Seoul (AFP) Oct 21, 2021
North Korea accused the United States of "double standards" over weapons testing, state media reported Thursday after an emergency UN Security Council meeting on the issue. Pyongyang fired a new type of submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) on Tuesday, the latest in a series of tests in recent weeks, prompting the US and Britain to call the diplomatic meeting in New York. But a spo

Washington DC (SPX) Oct 21, 2021
DARPA's System Security Integration Through Hardware and firmware (SSITH) program is exploring hardware security architectures and tools that protect electronic systems against common classes of hardware vulnerabilities exploited through software, with the goal of breaking the endless cycle of software patch-and-pray. To date, research on the program has focused on developing approaches an

Brussels, Belgium (SPX) Oct 21, 2021
AMOS and the European Space Agency (ESA) have signed a contract to build and qualify a first flight model of an advanced compact hyperspectral imager designed by AMOS and called ELOIS. Thanks to the financial support of the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO), this co-funded project will deliver the payload to be integrated on an InnoSat platform by OHB Sweden AB for a launch in 2024. B

Rome NY (SPX) Oct 21, 2021
The Air Force Research Laboratory, in partnership with UK's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), have demonstrated for the first time the ability for the U.S. and the UK to jointly develop, select, train, and deploy state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms in support of the Armed Forces of each of the two nations. This research is designed to support adjacent, collaboratin