Wurzburg, Germany (SPX) Sep 12, 2024
An enormous canyon stretches across Mars: Valles Marineris is 3,000 kilometres long, 600 kilometres wide and on average eight kilometres deep. Its Latin name goes back to the Mars orbiter "Mariner", which discovered the valley in the early 1970s. Since 2012, this largest known canyon in the solar system has received special attention from the German Space Agency at the German Aerospace Cen

Week in images: 09-13 September 2024

Discover our week through the lens

Video: 00:04:11

ESA's Euclid mission is surveying the sky to explore the composition and evolution of the dark Universe. But how can Euclid see the invisible? Watch this video to learn about the light-bending effect that enables scientists to trace how dark matter is distributed in the Universe.

By making use of Euclid’s flagship simulation, the video illustrates how dark-matter filaments subtly alter the shape of galaxies. Light travelling to us from vastly distant galaxies is bent and distorted by concentrations of matter along its way. The effect is called gravitational lensing because matter (both ‘normal’ and dark matter) acts

Video: 00:01:15

See Mercury in a whole new light, through the ‘eyes’ of the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo spacecraft, as it sped past Mercury during its latest encounter on 4 September 2024.

During the flyby, BepiColombo’s three monitoring cameras (M-CAMs) captured detailed images of the planet’s cratered surface. Within these images, Mercury scientists identified various geological features that BepiColombo will study in more detail once in orbit around the planet.

One such feature, shown in this video, is the newly named Stoddart crater. The name ‘Stoddart’ – after artist Margaret Olrog Stoddart (1865–1934) – was recently assigned following a request from the M-CAM

Image: This Copernicus Sentinel-2 image captures algal bloom swirls in the north Adriatic Sea, along the coast of Italy.

Video: 00:01:25

Watch the closest flyby of a planet ever, as the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo spacecraft sped past Mercury during its latest encounter on 4 September 2024.

This flyby marked BepiColombo’s closest approach to Mercury yet, and for the first time, the spacecraft had a clear view of Mercury’s south pole.

This timelapse is made up of 128 different images captured by all three of BepiColombo’s monitoring cameras, M-CAM 1, 2 and 3. We see the planet move in and out of the fields of view of M-CAM 2 and 3, before M-CAM 1 sees the planet receding into the distance at the end

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Sep 11, 2024
BlackSky Technology Inc. (NYSE: BKSY) has been chosen by NASA to supply high-frequency, time-diverse satellite imaging data for Earth observation projects under NASA's Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition Program (CSDAP). This contract, which could reach a total value of $476 million, will run through November 2028 for participating contractors. "Adding BlackSky's space-based intelligence

London, UK (SPX) Sep 12, 2024
Astroscale UK, the British arm of Astroscale Holdings Inc., has been awarded a GBP 1.95 million contract by the UK Space Agency to further develop its Cleaning Outer Space Mission through Innovative Capture (COSMIC) spacecraft. The COSMIC mission aims to remove two inactive UK satellites from orbit as part of a national Active Debris Removal (ADR) effort. This phase of the mission will con

Elche, Spain (SPX) Sep 12, 2024
Primary, secondary, and vocational schools now have the chance to launch their projects into space through PLD Space's new SPARK Program. This initiative offers students, teachers, and researchers the opportunity to send experiments into space on the first two flights of the MIURA 5 rocket, planned for late 2025 and early 2026 - at no cost to participating institutions. The SPARK Program i

Sydney, Australia (SPX) Sep 12, 2024
A newly-built high-altitude simulation test stand in Northwest China's Shaanxi province has successfully completed its test run, according to a report from China Space News on Wednesday. The test stand, designed to simulate the operating conditions for the main deceleration engine of China's manned lunar landing spacecraft, is seen as a significant achievement in the country's ongoing lunar expl