Copernical Team
NASA analysis: Earth is safe from asteroid Apophis for 100-plus years
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The near-Earth object was thought to pose a slight risk of impacting Earth in 2068, but now radar observations have ruled that out.
After its discovery in 2004, asteroid 99942 Apophis had been identified as one of the most hazardous asteroids that could impact Earth.
Raspberry Pi-powered cybersecurity for future missions, tested on Space Station
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One of the cheapest experiments ever flown in orbit has finished operating after 22 months on the International Space Station. Running on a Raspberry Pi Zero costing just a few Euros, ESA’s CryptIC payload was exploring cryptography techniques running on off-the-shelf hardware, to ensure cybersecurity for future low-cost space missions.
Suez Canal traffic jam seen from space
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Image:
The enormous Ever Given container ship, wedged in Egypt’s Suez Canal, is visible in new images captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission. Week in images: 22 - 26 March 2021
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Week in images: 22 - 26 March 2021
Discover our week through the lens
Apophis impact ruled out for the first time
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New observations of asteroid Apophis – thought to pose a slight risk of impacting Earth in 2068 – rule out any chance of impact for at least a century. After 17 years of observations and orbit analysis, ESA is removing the enormous asteroid from its Risk List.
Light show over US sky likely SpaceX debris re-entering atmosphere
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A spectacular display of lights that streamed across the night sky over the US Pacific Northwest was probably debris from a SpaceX mission re-entering the atmosphere, the National Weather Service (NWS) said.
"While we await further confirmation on the details, here's the unofficial information we have so far. The widely reported bright objects in the sky were the debris from a Falcon 9 rocket 2nd stage," NWS Seattle tweeted.
Videos posted on social media showed a thick cluster of glowing dots with blazing trails of light moving slowly across the sky before fizzling out, with users speculating the phenomenon might be a meteor shower or even, jokingly, an alien invasion.
Local media reported multiple sightings just after 9 pm local time, with videos posted online from Washington state and Oregon.
NWS Seattle said the sight was more likely to be caused by space debris rather than a meteor or similar object because the latter would be moving far faster, a conclusion backed up by several meteorologists quoted by local media.
Jonathan McDowell from Harvard's Center for Astrophysics also pointed to the Falcon 9 rocket stage as the source of the firework-like display.
ESA–EGU announce Excellence Award winners
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ESA, along with the European Geosciences Union (EGU), are excited to announce the winners of the first ESA–EGU Earth Observation Excellence Awards.
Redwire goes public with SPAC Buyout
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Redwire, a mission-critical space solutions company, and Genesis Park Acquisition Corp. (NYSE: GNPK) ("Genesis Park"), a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company, announced today that they have entered into a definitive merger agreement that will result in Redwire becoming a publicly traded company. The transaction is expected to be completed by the end of the second quarter of 2021, Earth from Space: Gariep Dam, South Africa
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The Gariep Dam, the largest dam in South Africa, is featured in this false-colour image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission.
Ocean currents predicted on Enceladus
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Buried beneath 20 kilometers of ice, the subsurface ocean of Enceladus--one of Saturn's moons--appears to be churning with currents akin to those on Earth.
The theory, derived from the shape of Enceladus's ice shell, challenges the current thinking that the moon's global ocean is homogenous, apart from some vertical mixing driven by the warmth of the moon's core.
Enceladus, a tiny fr 
