In this enormous new image, the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope reveals never-before-seen details of the galaxy group “Stephan’s Quintet”.

Close proximity of the system gives astronomers a ringside seat to galactic mergers and interactions. Webb’s new image also shows in rare detail how interacting galaxies trigger star formation in each other and how gas in galaxies is being disturbed and the outflows driven by a black hole in Stephan’s Quintet in a level of detail never seen before. Tight galaxy groups like this may have been more common in the early Universe when superheated, infalling

Highly anticipated observations hint at treasure trove of discoveries to come

The dawn of a new era in astronomy has begun as the world gets its first look at the full capabilities of the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. The telescope’s first full-colour images and spectroscopic data, which uncover a spectacular collection of cosmic features that have remained elusive until now, were released today.

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope reveals emerging stellar nurseries and individual stars in Carina Nebula that were previously obscured.

The new images showcase how Webb’s cameras can peer through cosmic dust, shedding new light on how stars form. Objects in earliest, rapid phases of star formation difficult to capture, but Webb’s extreme sensitivity, spatial resolution, and imaging capability can chronicle these elusive events.

ESA’s new Vega-C rocket is just one day from its inaugural flight. You can follow live on ESA Web TV. Flight VV21 will lift off as soon as 13 July at 13:13 CEST, pending suitable conditions for launch.

    Broadcast begins 12:45 CEST/11:45 BST on ESA Web TV

    13:13 CEST/12:13 BST/11:13 UTC/08:13 Kourou – liftoff

The Ariane 6 launch pad at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana now hosts the first example of ESA’s new heavy-lift rocket. This Ariane 6 combined tests model will be used to validate the entire launch system during its ground phase in readiness for the inaugural launch of Ariane 6. 

An ESA-financed nanosatellite, due to lift off aboard the inaugural flight of Vega-C this Wednesday, will operate an AI system in the harsh, radiation-wracked environment of the Van Allen Belts. The shoebox-sized Trisat-R – one of six ‘CubeSats’ on the flight, headed up to a rarely-trafficked close to 6000 km altitude orbit – is also carrying radiation-detection payloads from CERN, the European Council for Nuclear Research, Slovenian firm SkyLabs and ESA itself.

Durham NC (SPX) Jul 07, 2022
By turning a traditional lab-based fabrication process upside down, researchers at Duke University have greatly expanded the abilities of light-manipulating metasurfaces while also making them much more robust against the elements. The combination could allow these quickly maturing devices to be used in a wide range of practical applications, such as cameras that capture images in a broad

Washington (AFP) July 6, 2022
Space travel company Virgin Galactic on Wednesday said it had reached an agreement with Boeing subsidiary Aurora Flight Sciences to build two new air launch carrier aircraft for its spaceships. These new "motherships" will replace Virgin Galactic's existing carrier plane - the VMS Eve built by Scaled Composites - with the first of the new aircraft due to enter service by 2025. The company

Beijing (XNA) Jul 10, 2022
Chinese scientists have published a study that helps to explain an anomaly in the composition of the Moon's biggest crater - the South Pole-Aitken Basin - identifying the abnormal materials there as originating from the lunar crust. The study was conducted by a Chinese research team studying planetary sciences at Shandong University, and was published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Kirtland AFB NM (SPX) Jul 07, 2022
The Air Force Research Laboratory Space Vehicles Directorate spaceflight experiment Recurve was launched July 2, 2022, from the Mojave Air and Space Port on the Virgin Orbit space system in California. The launch supported the U.S. Space Force's STP-S28A mission and carried six additional payloads for the Department of Defense Space Test Program (STP). Recurve is the latest in several low-