When you think of spacecraft landings on other worlds, you probably first think of Mars, the Moon, Venus, and comet 67P (if you’ve been following along over the past couple of years.) But—in addition to the asteroid Eros and hard impacts on a comet and Mercury—Saturn’s moon Titan was also visited by an alien (i.e.,…
Tag: ESA
Could This Asteroid Hit Earth? Astronomers Go “Back in Time” to Find the Answer
Astronomers are always watching the skies for observations of near-Earth asteroids—”space rocks” that have orbits close to Earth’s and, in the case of potentially hazardous asteroids (aka PHAs), those whose orbits could actually cross Earth’s and are larger than 150 meters (500 ft) across. When a new one of these is discovered—no small feat considering that…
Light and Dark: the Two Faces of Dione
Saturn’s moon Dione (pronounced DEE-oh-nee) is a heavily-cratered, 700-mile-wide world of ice and rock, its surface slashed by signature “wispy lines” that mark the bright faces of sheer ice cliffs. But Dione has some strange colorations too, evident here in a global map created in 2014 from Cassini images. Its leading half—the side that faces “forward” as…
With One More Comet Landing Rosetta’s “Rock and Roll” Mission is Ended
Rosetta is down. I repeat: Rosetta is down. This morning, Sept. 30, 2016, just after 10:39 UTC (6:39 a.m. EDT) ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft ended its mission with an impact onto the surface of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The descent, begun with a final burn of its thrusters about 14 hours earlier, was slow, stately, and deliberate, but even…
Rosetta Finally Found Its Lost Philae Lander
Nearly two years after its historic landing on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, ESA’s lander has finally been spotted in an image from the orbiting Rosetta spacecraft—PHILAE HAS BEEN FOUND!
Venus’ Water Has Been Electrified Away
Using data gathered by ESA’s Venus Express researchers have determined what likely happened to Venus’ water: it was “zapped” away by a surprisingly strong electric field generated by the planet’s atmosphere and the incoming solar wind. Without a protective magnetosphere like Earth has, Venus’ upper atmosphere directly interacts with energetic particles streaming out from the Sun. The…
Europe’s Sentinel-3A Returns Gorgeous “First Light” Earth Images
Captured by the EU’s Copernicus Sentinel-3A satellite on Feb. 29, 2016, this beautiful composition of blacks, purples, and blues shows the twilight transition across the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, located north of the Arctic Circle between Norway and the North Pole. The snow-covered and fjord-cut large island of Spitsbergen can be seen at the right edge, while sea ice…
Goodnight, Sweet Philae: ESA’s Comet Lander Likely in Permanent Hibernation
ESA’s Philae lander, the first spacecraft to successfully soft-land on the surface of a comet and former piggyback partner to Rosetta, has not been in communication since July of 2015. With 67P now six months past perihelion and heading deeper out into the Solar System and Rosetta’s mission coming to a close this year, it’s…
Comet 67P Confirmed To Be a Contact Binary
Ever since we got our first good look at Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko from the approaching Rosetta spacecraft in 2014 it has been considered to be a textbook example of a contact binary, with its “rubber duckie” double-lobed shape consisting of an oval “head” and flat-bottomed “body” joined by a “neck.’ Now, using data gathered by Rosetta’s…
Rosetta’s Perihelion-Bound Comet Fires a Fountain Into Space
On July 29, with ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft in orbital tow, the 2.5-mile (4-kilometer) -long Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko fired its brightest jet yet since Rosetta’s arrival just over a full year ago, on Aug. 6, 2014. Most of the images of 67P showing jets and outgassing activity released over the past few months have been edited to…
This Was Rosetta’s View of Earth and the Moon in March 2005
ESA’s comet-chasing Rosetta mission is best known today for its two historic firsts of entering orbit around a comet and sending a lander onto the surface of said comet, in May and November of 2014 respectively. But Rosetta didn’t just go directly from its March 2, 2004 launch to comet 67P; it had to perform…
No Signal Yet From Philae (But ESA Isn’t Giving Up)
The first attempt by ESA and Rosetta to hear back from Philae has turned up only radio silence – but that doesn’t necessarily mean the lander is on permanent shutdown. It may just be that it’s still too cold and dark where Philae is to have sufficiently warmed up its components for reactivation. “It was…
Lights in the Dark 