Week in Images

What are the parts of the Soyuz Rocket? What are the stages into orbit? What is the launch sequence? Watch and find out. This video has been produced from an actual lesson delivered to the ESA astronaut class of 2009 (also known as the #Shenanigans09) during their ESA Basic Training in 2009-2010.

A very young star, RNO 91, is being born in the guts of the dark cloud LDN 43, 520 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Ophiuchus. The newborn star is hidden in this image, revealed only by light reflected onto the plumes of the dark cloud. A dusty, icy disc surrounding it may host planet embryos.

This image is based on data gathered by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. A version of this image was entered into the

CAVES staff under a ray of light coming from the ceiling of a cave, which appears very infrequently throughout the year.

The ESA CAVES team is preparing for CAVES 2013 by doing a 'dry run' at the training site. Procedures, tasks, equipment and locations are checked in preparation for the real thing: sending six astronauts underground in September.

CAVES, an abbreviation of Cooperative Adventure for Valuing and Exercising human behaviour and performance Skills, prepares astronauts to work safely and effectively and solve problems as a multicultural team while exploring uncharted areas using space procedures.

Photograph taken by ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano from on board the International Space Station showing a rising crescent Moon seen through rare noctilucent clouds. Luca is part of the six-strong Expedition 36 crew currently resident on the ISS. More about his six-month Volare Mission:

The Envisat satellite found that the dormant Mount Longonot in Kenya rose by 9 cm from 2004 to 2006. Tectonic activity such as the movement of magma underground may have caused this deformation of the surface above.

Our week through the lens:

05-09 August 2013

Shaken and stirred: inside a rocket’s fuel tank at liftoff

If rocket launch stages were transparent, this is what would be visible at the moment of launch.

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Did you know...

How often do astronauts wash their clothes in space?

Hubble Eyes a Mysterious Old Spiral

This striking cosmic whirl is the center of galaxy NGC 524, as seen with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This galaxy is located in the constellation of Pisces, some 90 million light-years from Earth. NGC 524 is a lenticular galaxy. 

Meteorite artist meets the public

On Tuesday, 30 July, artist Katie Paterson will be featured at an 'Artist's Talk' at the Turner Contemporary Gallery, Margate, UK, starting at 15:00 BST. She will present her meteorite art to the public and answer questions, together with Dr Alice Bunn from the UK Space Agency.Register to win free tickets.

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Image of the week

The northwestern part of Greece is pictured in this image acquired on 28 April by the Landsat-8 satellite

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Rollout

 

Ariane 5 ready for launch.

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ESA Euronews

Weltraumspaziergänge - Große Schritte für die Menschheit

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Alphasat lifts off

Watch the Alphasat launch live on 25 July. Streaming starts 15 minutes before liftoff, with the launch window between 21:53 and 23:11 CEST

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Alexander’s space clinic

They are skills everyone hopes an astronaut never has to use but they are vital for the International Space Station, where no ambulance can reach. ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst recently boosted his medical skills in a busy hospital setting.
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Night or day?

Human spaceflight and operations image of the week: Concordia in darkness

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Wching wetlands from space

The use of satellite data to monitor wetlands for sustainable water management is growing. Following promising results from monitoring efforts in the Mediterranean, ESA is working with African partners to expand its GlobWetland project even further.

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Double trouble

Space science image of the week: watch two solar eruptions launch side-by-side into space.

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Top down

Alphasat's Ariane 5 launcher fairing is slowly lowered onto the second payload, with the satellite safely encased inside.

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Earth from Space: Explosive land

 

Earth from Space is presented by Kelsea Brennan-Wessels from the ESA Web-TV virtual studios. 

The Virunga Mountains that stretch across Rwanda's northern border with Uganda and east into the Democratic Republic of the Congo are featured in the seventy-third edition. 

See also this link to download the image. 

NASA's Hubble Sees a Stranger in the Crowd

The constellation of Virgo (The Virgin) is the largest of the Zodiac constellations, and the second largest overall after Hydra (The Water Snake). Its most appealing feature, however, is the sheer number of galaxies that lie within it. In this picture, among a crowd of face- and edge-on spiral, elliptical, and irregular galaxies, lies NGC 4866, a lenticular galaxy situated about 80 million light-years from Earth. 

Earth from Space

Join us Friday, 19 July, at 10:00 CEST for an 800 km-high tour with spectacular images from Earth-observing satellite.

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Deep-space listening stations gain made-in-Europe hearing boost

Picking up ultra-weak signals from spacecraft exploring deep in our Solar System requires cooling a detector to within a few degrees of absolute zero. Thanks to ESA's support, the technology is now available in Europe for the first time.

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Target asteroid tracked by European teams

In a recent close-ish flyby, asteroid 2002 GT was studied in detail for the first time by a network of European astronomers. The observations were coordinated by ESA's asteroid centre in Italy, and should prove crucial for a future spacecraft rendezvous.

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Alphasat installed on Sylda

Europe's largest telecom satellite Alphasat is installed on Ariane's Sylda dual launch pod in the Batiment d'assemblage final in Kourou, French Guiana, on 12 July.

Credit: CNES

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