Latest news with #EuropeanSpaceAgency
Indian Express
11 hours ago
- Science
- Indian Express
How scientists created an ‘artificial' total solar eclipse to unlock the Sun's secrets
The sun's corona (or outer atmosphere) has proved a difficult subject for solar scientists on Earth to study, appearing only in a total solar eclipse. This phenomenon, occurring once in around 18 months, was their only opportunity to observe parts of the corona. However, with Proba-3's recent mission, research can advance at a much quicker pace. The European Space Agency (ESA) on June 16, announced that the Proba-3 mission had created an 'artificial total solar eclipse' in orbit. This was achieved as the mission's two spacecraft – the Coronagraph and the Occulter – flew in formation 150 metres apart, and aligned so that the Occulter's disc covered the sun's disc, casting a shadow onto the Coronagraph's optical instrument. 'I was absolutely thrilled to see the images, especially since we got them on the first try,' Andrei Zhukov, principal investigator for ASPIICS at the Royal Observatory of Belgium, said in a statement. The mission was launched in December 2024. It involved sending both satellites into the solar orbit. In March this year, both spacecraft flew 150 metres apart, in formation up to to a millimetre's precision, without control from the Earth for several hours. When creating the artificial solar eclipse, the satellites aligned in formation based on the position of the Sun. Then, Occulter's 1.4-metre large disc would be used to block the sun's disc. This would cast a shadow of approximately 8 centimetre, across the Coronagraph's optical instruments, positioned behind the Occulter. Thanks to the precision, these instruments were able to provide the images of the corona. 'Our 'artificial eclipse' images are comparable with those taken during a natural eclipse. The difference is that we can create our eclipse once every 19.6-hour orbit, while total solar eclipses only occur naturally around once, very rarely twice a year. On top of that, natural total eclipses only last a few minutes, while Proba-3 can hold its artificial eclipse for up to 6 hours,' Zhukov explained. This mission could prove crucial for solar scientists, with previously unseen angles of the elusive corona becoming available for study. One benefit could be the study of solar wind, described by the ESA as 'the continuous flow of matter from the Sun into outer space.' Driven by the corona, these winds usually consist of charged particles, and constantly rain down upon the Earth as well. However, this can be interrupted by coronal mass ejections (CMEs), or solar storms. This subsequently affects space weather, which in turn can affect Earth's power grids, communication systems, and satellite operations. With the data from the Proba-3 mission and any subsequent missions focused on corona imaging, solar scientists can be better prepared for the potential threat of a severe solar storm – which NASA describes as 'a sudden explosion of particles, energy, magnetic fields, and material blasted into the solar system by the Sun'. Another question that Proba-3 would be able to solve is how the corona, which extends millions of miles across space, but still reaches temperatures above a million degrees Celsius, burns much hotter than the surface. To understand the reasoning, Proba-3 is attempting to study the corona at a minimal distance from the sun's surface. Due to the quality of the equipment, fewer stray rays would hit the detector, more details would be captured, and fainter features would be detected as compared to a traditional coronagraph. 'Current coronagraphs are no match for Proba-3, which will observe the Sun's corona down almost to the edge of the solar surface. So far, this was only possible during natural solar eclipses,' Jorge Amaya, Space Weather Modelling Coordinator at ESA, said in the ESA release. Alongside the key data provided by Proba-3, its precision flying in formation also paved the way for future missions, such as the ESA's Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), scheduled to launch in 2035. This mission will contain three identical spacecraft, arranged in an equilateral triangle formation, trailing behind the Earth in its orbit around the Sun. The mission is scheduled to last two years, aiming to capture images of the corona for further study, and then re-enter the Earth's atmosphere five years post-launch, as per the ESA. (This article has been curated by Purv Ashar, who is an intern with The Indian Express)
Business Wire
12 hours ago
- Business
- Business Wire
Redwire Successfully Completes Integration of Hammerhead Spacecraft for Upcoming European Mission
JACKSONVILLE, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Redwire Corporation (NYSE: RDW), a leader in space infrastructure for the next generation space economy, announced today that is has completed the integration of a Hammerhead spacecraft platform for an upcoming European Space Agency (ESA) mission at its facility in Kruibeke, Belgium. The Hammerhead spacecraft will support ESA's Atmospheric Limb Tracker for Investigation of the Upcoming Stratosphere (ALTIUS) mission. Redwire is the prime contractor for ALTIUS. This milestone marks the completion of Hammerhead spacecraft platform integration at Redwire's state-of-the-art satellite processing facility in Belgium. Following platform integration, the satellite will undergo platform system testing and payload integration, marking the completion of the full satellite. Hammerhead is Redwire's highly versatile low Earth orbit spacecraft platform, offering exceptional performance and a track record of outstanding reliability with 50 years of in-orbit performance without spacecraft failure. The ALTIUS satellite also features Redwire's third-generation Advanced Data and Power Management System (ADPMS-3) avionics. 'Redwire's Belgium facility has emerged as a world-class satellite processing facility with a proven track record of building satellites for groundbreaking multinational missions, including ESA's Proba-3 mission,' said Redwire President of Civil and International Space, Mike Gold. 'We are incredibly proud of the team's accomplishment in achieving this milestone, and we look forward to continuing to build on this track record of efficiency and on-time deliveries for ESA in support of a bold new era of European space exploration and development.' Redwire's facility in Belgium has more than 40 years of spaceflight heritage developing spacecraft platforms and success delivering innovative technology for game-changing ESA programs. Most notably, every spacecraft used for ESA's Proba missions (Proba-1, Proba-2, Proba-V, and Proba-3) have been developed and integrated at Redwire's Belgium facility. Leveraging its legacy of innovation and excellence, Redwire continues to manufacture spacecraft for important ESA programs, including Skimsat, a technology demonstrator for a small satellite platform designed to operate in very low Earth orbit. Disclaimer: The views expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Space Agency. About Redwire Redwire Corporation (NYSE:RDW) is an integrated aerospace and defense company focused on advanced technologies. We are building the future of aerospace infrastructure, autonomous systems and multi-domain operations leveraging digital engineering and AI automation. Redwire's approximately 1,300 employees located throughout the United States and Europe are committed to delivering innovative space and airborne platforms transforming the future of multi-domain operations. For more information, please visit
Yomiuri Shimbun
13 hours ago
- Science
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Solar Orbiter Obtains 1st Images of the Sun's Poles
ESA & NASA / Solar Orbiter / PHI Team, J. Hirzberger (MPS) / Handout via Reuters A radiance map of the sun's south pole as recorded by the Solar Orbiter spacecraft is seen in this image released by the European Space Agency on June 11. The robotic Solar Orbiter spacecraft has obtained the first images ever taken of our sun's two poles as scientists seek a deeper understanding of Earth's host star, including its magnetic field, its 11-year cycle of activity and the solar wind. The European Space Agency on June 11 released images taken in March using three of Solar Orbiter's onboard instruments. They show the sun's south pole from a distance of roughly 65 million kilometers, obtained at a period of maximum solar activity. Images of the north pole are still being transmitted by the spacecraft back to Earth. Solar Orbiter, developed by ESA in collaboration with the U.S. space agency NASA, was launched in 2020 from Florida. Until now, all the views of the sun have come from the same vantage point — looking face-on toward its equator from the plane on which Earth and the solar system's other planets orbit, called the ecliptic plane. Solar Orbiter used a slingshot flyby around Venus in February to get out of this plane to view the sun from up to 17 degrees below the solar equator. Future slingshot flybys will provide an even better view, at beyond 30 degrees. 'The best is still to come. What we have seen is just a first quick peek,' said solar physicist Sami Solanki of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany, who heads the scientific team for the spacecraft's Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager instrument. 'The spacecraft observed both poles, first the south pole, then the north pole,' Solanki said. Solar Orbiter is gathering data on phenomena including the sun's magnetic field, its activity cycle and the solar wind, a relentless high-speed flow of charged particles emanating from the sun's outermost atmospheric layer that fills interplanetary space. 'We are not sure what we will find, and it is likely we will see things that we didn't know about before,' said solar physicist Hamish Reid of University College London's Mullard Space Science Laboratory, coprincipal investigator of Solar Orbiter's Extreme Ultraviolet Imager instrument. The sun is a ball of hot electrically charged gas that, as it moves, generates a powerful magnetic field, which flips from south to north and back again every 11 years in what is called the solar cycle. The magnetic field drives the formation of sunspots, cooler regions on the solar surface that appear as dark blotches. At the cycle's beginning, the sun has fewer sunspots. Their number increases as the cycle progresses, before starting all over again. 'What we have been missing to really understand this [solar cycle] is what is actually happening at the top and bottom of the sun,' Reid said. The sun's diameter is about 1.4 million kilometers, more than 100 times wider than Earth. ESA & NASA / Solar Orbiter / PHI, EUI & SPICE Teams / Handout via Reuters Eight views of the sun's south pole obtained on March 16–17, 2025, by the Solar Orbiter spacecraft's Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager (PHI), Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) and Spectral Imaging of the Coronal Environment (SPICE) instruments are seen in this image released by the European Space Agency on June 11. 'Whilst the Earth has a clear north and south pole, the Solar Orbiter measurements show both north and south polarity magnetic fields are currently present at the south pole of the sun. This happens during the maximum in activity of the solar cycle, when the sun's magnetic field is about to flip. In the coming years, the sun will reach solar minimum, and we expect to see a more orderly magnetic field around the poles of the sun,' Reid said. 'We see in the images and movies of the polar regions that the sun's magnetic field is chaotic at the poles at the [current] phase of the solar cycle — high solar activity, cycle maximum,' Solanki said. The sun is located about 149 million kilometers from our planet. 'The data that Solar Orbiter obtains during the coming years will help modelers in predicting the solar cycle. This is important for us on Earth because the sun's activity causes solar flares and coronal mass ejections which can result in radio communication blackouts, destabilize our power grids, but also drive the sensational auroras,' Reid said. 'Solar Orbiter's new vantage point out of the ecliptic will also allow us to get a better picture of how the solar wind expands to form the heliosphere, a vast bubble around the sun and its planets,' Reid added. A previous spacecraft, Ulysses, flew over the solar poles in the 1990s. 'Ulysses, however, was blind in the sense that it did not carry any optical instruments — telescopes or cameras — and hence could only sense the solar wind passing the spacecraft directly, but could not image the sun,' Solanki said.
Daily Mail
13 hours ago
- Science
- Daily Mail
Life on Mars: Humans will live in huge 'space oases' on the Red Planet in just 15 years, European Space Agency predicts
Imagine a future where humans live in huge 'space oases' on Mars – luxury indoor habitats made of heat-reflective material that grow their own food. Robots are sent into the vast Martian wilderness, where they explore without the risk of exhaustion, radiation poisoning or dust contamination. Enormous space stations and satellites are manufactured in orbit, AI is trusted to make critical decisions, and the whole solar system is connected by a vast internet network. While this sounds like science-fiction, the European Space Agency (ESA) hopes it will become a reality in just 15 years. In a new report, the agency – which represents more than 20 countries including the UK – outlines an ambitious vision for space exploration by 2040. 'By 2040, we envision a resilient European presence across Earth's orbits and the solar system,' it says. 'Expanding into space is not a luxury but a necessity and space is no longer a frontier – it is a territory. 'It unlocks unknown resources that open new markets and enable scientific breakthroughs.' The new report, 'Technology 2040: A Vision For The European Space Agency', shows the public where ESA wants to be 'in the decades to come and the directions for how to get there'. As part of its vision, in just 15 years' time, humans will dwell in 'plentiful' habitats called 'space oases' in Earth's orbit and also on the moon, Mars and far beyond. These white domes will protect humans from cosmic radiation, offering a place for them to sleep, eat and work between trips outside. They will be utterly self-sustaining habitats, creating their own power and food, making resupply missions from Earth a thing of the past. More than ever before on Earth, humans will rely on autonomous technology akin to the droids in Star Wars to explore the vast planet, about 4,212 miles in diameter. Much like 2015 film 'The Martian', plants will thrive in glass-ceilinged greenhouses, giving us foods like potatoes, rice, fungus, tomatoes, and leafy greens. ESA says the habitats must protect astronauts from the harsh conditions outside, calling for 'smart radiation shielding materials'. They will be packed with high-tech sensing capabilities to forecast, monitor and mitigate variable hazards such as incoming space rocks. If and when they land on Mars, comet bodies and asteroids will be mined, their materials put to use for building materials while also being analysed to reveal more about our solar system's history. ESA also envisions a future where 'large space structures', like spaceships, satellites, telescopes and space stations, won't be bound by the limitations of the launch vehicles dimensions. For example, the tennis-court-sized James Webb Space Telescope was painstakingly and expensively designed to fit within its launch rocket 'like a model ship in a bottle' before unfolding in space four years ago. Instead, such a machine could be manufactured and assembled directly in orbit, or on the surface of the moon or Mars. Autonomous spacecraft will no longer need gatherings of humans to shepherd them from a distance because they'll have the required intelligence of their own, eliminating the need for ground control. Space debris, meanwhile, will be recycled and reused to create a 'circular and sustainable' space economy, mitigating environmental impacts To date, human habitation in space has been limited to space stations in low-Earth orbit, where crew members stay for short periods – around six months at most. But in the near future, people would stay in space for months or years at a time, or eventually move there permanently, making us a multiplanetary species. The new report, 'Technology 2040: A Vision For The European Space Agency', shows the public where ESA wants to be 'in the decades to come and the directions for how to get there' ESA says: 'The next steps in human exploration will involve longer stays and farther destinations. 'Key to the success of these undertakings will be the creation of more permanent infrastructure with increased independence from Earth.' While undoubtedly an exciting vision, ESA and its members no doubt have their work cut out to make it a reality in just 15 years. As yet, no human has ventured further from Earth than 248,655 miles, as achieved by the Apollo 13 crew on April 14, 1970. In comparison, Mars is 140 million miles from Earth on average, and our only presence there is a collection of debris and rovers in various states of activity. NASA and Elon Musk's SpaceX are both planning to put humans on Mars in the next 20 years – but no spaceship yet in existence is ready for the journey. The most promising vessel is SpaceX's Starship, which has been designed for long-distance space travel, but it could be decades before it's ready for a Mars trip. On Wednesday night, Starship exploded into a bull of flames after a malfunction during a routine ground test in Texas. Despite once being home to lush oceans of liquid water billions of years ago, any traces of H2O on Mars today are well hidden. But experts say there's two miles of water buried beneath the surface in an area of the planet's equator, known as the Medusae Fossae Formation (MFF). The water is frozen as ice in a layer measuring over two miles (3.7km) thick, according to new data from the Mars Express spacecraft. If melted, the water would cover the whole of Mars in a layer of liquid up to 8.8 feet (2.7 metres) deep, and would be enough to fill Earth's Red Sea. Although melting the ice may require an ambitious drilling operation when astronauts land on Mars, it could potentially be used for drinking or growing crops.
Irish Independent
21 hours ago
- Science
- Irish Independent
Irish researcher joins €1.7bn hunt for Einstein's ‘ripples in space-time'
This work is part of the European Space Agency's €1.74bn Lisa (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) mission to deploy the first gravitational wave detector in space to detect the ripples. Gravitational waves have opened up a new way of observing the universe, according to said Barry Wardell, associate professor of mathematics and statistics at UCD. Prof Wardell has been awarded a €2.5m Advanced European Research Council Grant to study gravitational waves within the Lisa mission. Until recently, scientists' understanding of the universe came mostly from light – in its visible, radio or X-ray forms. The problem with relying on this, according to Prof Wardell, is that light cannot access all regions of space, especially near black holes, or the moments right after the Big Bang. 'Gravitational waves, by contrast, travel virtually untouched across the cosmos, carrying information about the most extreme, energetic events in existence,' he said. 'This lets us peer into environments we could never reach with telescopes alone.' By operating in space, the Lisa detector will be far away from all possible interfering 'noise' on Earth. 'We will be able to 'hear' signals from some of the most extreme events in the cosmos, including black holes the size of our Sun spiralling into supermassive black holes millions of times larger,' Prof Wardell said. For almost 100 years, scientists could only assume that gravitational waves existed, without having observed them directly, relying on Einstein's theories. They were first detected in 2015 in a dramatic discovery that led to the three researchers responsible together receiving the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics. ADVERTISEMENT Learn more Studying gravitational waves can help scientists answer questions like how galaxies and black holes form and develop over time. Prof Wardell will be working as part of an international network of scientists. 'What was the universe like in its earliest moments, before light could even travel freely?' he said. 'Gravitational waves are like messengers from those inaccessible corners of time and space.' Getting answers is a highly complex challenge that requires the use of advanced mathematics, supercomputers, and AI. 'While Einstein's predictions have held up for over a century, we've never been able to probe them in environments like merging black holes before,' Prof Wardell said. 'Gravitational wave detections could eventually reveal where his theory breaks down, pointing us toward new physics that might unify gravity with quantum mechanics – one of the biggest unsolved problems in science.' Yet how is all this relevant to our earthbound lives? 'Gravitational waves might sound far removed from everyday life,' Prof Wardell said. 'But even for ordinary people, they matter more than it first seems. 'This is a story of curiosity: our drive to understand where we come from, how the universe works, and what fundamental forces shape our reality.'
