European Space Agency, Author at YubaNet

Sea surface temperature anomaly June 2023

UK suffers marine heatwave

by European Space Agency June 21, 2023June 21, 2023

Some of the most severe marine heat increases on Earth are occurring in the seas surrounding the UK and Ireland. Satellite measurements show that water temperatures in certain areas are above average for this time of year. The coastal regions off the east coast of the UK, from Durham to Aberdeen, and off the northwest […]

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Smelly seaweed bloom heads to Florida

by European Space Agency April 7, 2023April 7, 2023

A large mass of Sargassum ‘seaweed’ circling around the Gulf of Mexico may soon wash up along the US west coast near Florida – depending on the right combination of currents and wind. The bloom, which may likely be the largest ever recorded, is so large that it’s visible from space. Sargassum is a leafy, […]

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Revealing invisible Himalaya glacier loss

by European Space Agency April 7, 2023April 7, 2023

New research reveals that ice being lost from glaciers that flow into lakes in the Himalayas has been significantly underestimated. This discovery has critical implications for predicting the demise of the region’s glaciers and for managing critical water resources. Glaciers in the Himalayas are part of the ‘third pole’, so-called because ice fields in high-mountain […]

Rocky exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 b (illustration)

Sci/Tech

Webb measures the temperature of a rocky exoplanet

by European Space Agency March 27, 2023March 27, 2023

An international team of researchers has used the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope to measure the temperature of the rocky exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 b. The measurement is based on the planet’s thermal emission: heat energy given off in the form of infrared light detected by Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). The result indicates that the planet’s dayside has a […]

Time-lapse photograph of 2022 WJ1 taken by astronomer Robert Weryk in Ontario Canada

Sci/Tech

Seventh shooting star ever spotted before strike

by European Space Agency February 13, 2023February 13, 2023

For the seventh time, a small asteroid – a meteoroid as astronomers call it — was discovered in space as it raced towards Earth impact. The predicted time and location of the impact (02:50 – 03:03 UTC, above northern France) were made possible with observations by European astronomer Krisztián Sárneczky using the 60 cm Schmidt telescope from […]

An artist illustration of the Quaoar system in front of a background of white stars. Central in the figure sits a brownish planet. This is Quaoar, a dwarf planet in the outer Solar System. At a distance of about five times its radius sits a ring. This ring is made up out of small grey pieces of debris. At twice the distance of the ring, to the left of Quaoar, sits its moon Weywot. Weywot looks about a sixth the size of Quaoar but has the same brownish colour. To the right of this system, we see a bright star. This star is bigger than the background stars and represents the distant Sun.

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ESA’s Cheops finds an unexpected ring around dwarf planet Quaoar

by European Space Agency February 9, 2023February 9, 2023

During a break from looking at planets around other stars, ESA’s CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite (Cheops) mission has observed a dwarf planet in our own Solar System and made a decisive contribution to the discovery of a dense ring of material around it. The dwarf planet is known as Quaoar. The presence of a ring at a distance […]

These images from Copernicus Sentinel-2 show the before and after of the massive slab of ice that broke away from the Brunt Ice Shelf. The image on the left shows cracks and chasms of the ice shelf on 25 October 2022, while the image on the right shows the ice berg breaking away from the ice shelf on 24 January 2023.

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Giant iceberg breaks away from Antarctic ice shelf

by European Space Agency January 25, 2023January 25, 2023

Satellite imagery confirms an enormous iceberg, around five times the size of Malta, has finally calved from Antarctica’s Brunt Ice Shelf. The new berg, estimated to be around 1550 sq km and around 150 m thick, calved when the crack known as Chasm-1 fully extended northwards severing the west part of the ice shelf. This […]

Solar Orbiter has spotted a ‘tube’ of cooler atmospheric gases snaking its way through the Sun’s magnetic field. The observation provides an intriguing new addition to the zoo of features revealed by the ESA-led Solar Orbiter mission, especially since the snake was a precursor to a much larger eruption.

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Solar snake spotted slithering across Sun’s surface

by European Space Agency November 14, 2022November 14, 2022

Solar Orbiter has spotted a ‘tube’ of cooler atmospheric gases snaking its way through the Sun’s magnetic field. The observation provides an intriguing new addition to the zoo of features revealed by the ESA-led Solar Orbiter mission, especially since the snake was a precursor to a much larger eruption. The snake was seen on 5 […]

This map depicts the mean ice-flow velocity of the George VI Ice Shelf and its drainage basins derived from Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) observations acquired from September 2019 – August 2020.

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Seasonal changes in Antarctic ice sheet flow dynamics detected for the first time

by European Space Agency October 12, 2022October 12, 2022

Certain estimates of Antarctica’s total contribution to sea-level rise may be over, or even underestimated, after researchers detected a previously unknown source of ice loss variability. In a new paper published in The Cryosphere, researchers using Copernicus Sentinel-1 data, found that glaciers feeding the George VI Ice Shelf speed up by approximately 15% during the Antarctic summer. This is the […]

This image taken by the SOAR Telescope in Chile, operated by NSF’s NOIRLab, shows a side view of the streams of material from the surface of Dimorphos -- captured two days after the asteroid was intentionally impacted by NASA’s DART spacecraft. On the right, the material is forming a more than 9600-km-long comet-like tail, pushed into shape by pressure from the Sun’s radiation.

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First kinetic impact test succeeds in shifting asteroid orbit

by European Space Agency October 12, 2022October 12, 2022

The kinetic impact of NASA’s DART spacecraft with the Dimorphos asteroid around its larger Didymos parent body has succeeded in shifting its orbit, meaning humankind’s first planetary defence test has been successful. Observations are continuing of the debris plume caused by the collision for as long as possible, as the asteroid system gradually recedes from Earth. As […]

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Webb and Hubble capture detailed views of DART impact

by European Space Agency September 29, 2022September 29, 2022

Two of the great space observatories, the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, have captured views of a unique experiment to smash a spacecraft into a small asteroid. Observations of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) impact mark the first time that Webb and Hubble were used to simultaneously observe the same celestial […]

NASA's DART spacecraft impacted the Dimorphos asteroid at 23:15:04 UTC on 26 September 2022.

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Hera team congratulates NASA asteroid impactors

by European Space Agency September 26, 2022September 26, 2022

ESA’s Hera mission team congratulates their counterparts in NASA’s DART mission team for their historic impact with the Dimorphos asteroid. Moving at 6.1 km per second, the car-sized Double Asteroid Redirect Test spacecraft struck the 160-m diameter asteroid at 01:15 CEST (00:15 BST) in the early hours of Tuesday morning, in humankind’s first test of the ‘kinetic […]

Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) image of Neptune, taken on 12 July 2022, brings the planet’s rings into full focus for the first time in more than three decades. The most prominent features of Neptune’s atmosphere in this image are a series of bright patches in the planet’s southern hemisphere that represent high-altitude methane-ice clouds. More subtly, a thin line of brightness circling the planet’s equator could be a visual signature of global atmospheric circulation that powers Neptune’s winds and storms. Additionally, for the first time, Webb has teased out a continuous band of high-latitude clouds surrounding a previously-known vortex at Neptune’s southern pole.

Sci/Tech

New Webb image captures clearest view of Neptune’s rings in decades

by European Space Agency September 21, 2022September 21, 2022

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope is showing off its capabilities closer to home with its first image of Neptune. Not only has Webb captured the clearest view of this peculiar planet’s rings in more than 30 years, but its cameras are also revealing the ice giant in a whole new light. Most striking about Webb’s new […]

Sci/Tech

Webb takes its first exoplanet image

by European Space Agency September 1, 2022September 1, 2022

For the first time, astronomers have used the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope to take a direct image of an exoplanet. The exoplanet is a gas giant, meaning it has no rocky surface and could not be habitable. The image, as seen through four different light filters, shows how Webb’s powerful infrared gaze can easily capture […]

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Webb inspects the heart of the Phantom Galaxy

by European Space Agency August 29, 2022August 29, 2022

New images of the spectacular Phantom Galaxy, M74, showcase the power of space observatories working together in multiple wavelengths. In this case, data from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope compliment each other to provide a comprehensive view of the galaxy. The Phantom Galaxy is around 32 million light-years […]

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Rhine river runs dry

by European Space Agency August 17, 2022August 17, 2022

Water levels on the Rhine River, Europe’s second-largest river, have continued to drop owing to soaring temperatures and lack of rainfall, preventing many vessels from navigating through the waters at full capacity. The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission captured part of the Rhine River near Cologne – showing the stark difference between August 2021 and August 2022. Flowing from […]

This global map shows the annual increase of methane emissions relative to the global mean annual increase and has been created using data from the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite.

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Methane levels surged in 2020 despite lockdowns

by European Space Agency June 23, 2022June 23, 2022

Levels of methane, the second most important greenhouse gas in our atmosphere, continued their unrelenting rise in 2020 despite the economic slowdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. A team of scientists, from the University of Leeds, have used data from the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite to pinpoint locations with large surges of methane emissions. These findings […]

For the first time ever recorded, in the late summer of 2021, rain fell on the high central region of the Greenland ice sheet. This extraordinary event was followed by the surface snow and ice melting rapidly. Researchers now understand exactly what went on in those fateful summer days and what we can learn from it.

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Historic Greenland ice sheet rainfall unraveled

by European Space Agency May 25, 2022May 25, 2022

For the first time ever recorded, in the late summer of 2021, rain fell on the high central region of the Greenland ice sheet. This extraordinary event was followed by the surface snow and ice melting rapidly. Researchers now understand exactly what went on in those fateful summer days and what we can learn from […]

Sci/Tech

Webb in full focus

by European Space Agency April 28, 2022April 28, 2022

Alignment of the James Webb Space Telescope is now complete. After full review, the observatory has been confirmed to be capable of capturing crisp, well-focused images with each of its four powerful onboard science instruments. Upon completing the seventh and final stage of telescope alignment, the team held a set of key decision meetings and unanimously agreed […]

Archival observations of 25 hot Jupiters by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have been analysed by an international team of astronomers, enabling them to answer five open questions important to our understanding of exoplanet atmospheres. Amongst other findings, the team found that the presence of metal oxides and hydrides in the hottest exoplanet atmospheres was clearly correlated with the atmospheres' being thermally inverted.

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Hubble observations used to answer key exoplanet questions

by European Space Agency April 25, 2022April 25, 2022

Archival observations of 25 hot Jupiters by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have been analysed by an international team of astronomers, enabling them to answer five open questions important to our understanding of exoplanet atmospheres. Amongst other findings, the team found that the presence of metal oxides and hydrides in the hottest exoplanet atmospheres was […]

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