Finding plumes at Europa is an exciting prospect, but scientists warn it'll be tricky, even from up close.

In 2005, images of a brilliant watery plume erupting from the surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus captivated the world. The giant column of vapor, ice particles, and organic molecules spraying from the moon's south polar region suggested that there's a liquid water ocean below Enceladus' ice shell and confirmed the moon is geologically active. The plume also thrust Enceladus and other worlds in the outer solar system, with no atmospheres and far from the heat of the Sun, toward the top of NASA's list of places to search for signs of life.

It can be hard to appreciate that a human-made, football-pitch-sized spacecraft is orbiting 400 km above our heads, but there it is.

The jewel of human cooperation and ingenuity that is the International Space Station shines brightly in this image captured by ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet from the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour.

Crew-2 got this amazing view during a flyaround of the orbiting lab after undocking from the Harmony module on 8 November, before their return to Earth.

Since this image was taken, there has even been a new addition in the form of the Russian Node Module, known as Prichal. The final Russian module planned for the station, it is a spherical node attached to the Russian segment with six docking ports for future Progress and Soyuz arrivals.

A collaboration between five space agencies, the station has become a symbol of peaceful international cooperation for 23 years now. It represents the best of our space engineering capabilities as well as humankind's pursuit of scientific knowledge and exploration.

By any standards, it is an incredible piece of spacecraft engineering. Weighing 420 tons, it travels in low-Earth orbit at more than 27 000 km/hour, circling Earth approximately 16 times every day.