ESA

Astronomers at NASA and ESA have discovered the youngest pulsar known. This celestial child is a mere 240 years old, and its birth would have been visible on Earth at the time as a supernova. This little star is known as Swift J1818.0−1607.

ESA has awarded a contract to Airbus Defence and Space to go ahead on the next phase to develop the Sample Fetch Rover. The contract will allow Airbus to continue work on the rover that will collect Martian rock and soil samples for return to Earth.

Back in February, the European Space Agency and NASA launched the Solar Orbiter, a spacecraft developed in collaboration to study the Sun in entirely new ways, and the probe has now made its first close approach to our star.

Turns out the Red Planet is a little more green than we thought. The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) has detected a tinge of green in the atmosphere, making it the first time this aurora-like glow has been spotted around a planet other than Earth.

Constructed using 3D printing technology, the Prometheus is a liquid-fueled rocket engine demonstrator that is intended as the model for the next generation of potentially reusable propulsion systems suitable for a wide variety of launch vehicles.

ESA’s Solar Orbiter is set to have a chance encounter with the tails of a disintegrating comet. The probe is currently en route to the inner solar system and has had instruments rushed through commissioning to be ready for the unexpected rendezvous.

ESA is looking at using the world's thinnest known material to build lighter, more efficient solar sails. By making sails out of one-atom-thick graphene sheets, the space agency aims to make sails capable of propelling unmanned interstellar missions.

Kerbal Space Program (KSP) is set to get a free update in partnership with the European Space Agency. It will let gamers play through world-famous exploration missions, with the help of new heavy rocket components.

There are some places that a solar-powered rover just can’t reach, like the Moon’s polar regions that are permanently in shadow. Now, ESA has outlined a new system where a lander shines a laser at a rover to keep it powered from miles away.

ESA has released "sonifications" of the telemetry sent back by the BepiColombo Mercury probe during its April 20, 2020 flyby of Earth. The five audio recordings were captured by two instruments installed on one of the two linked orbiters.

A small asteroid came within a cosmic hairbreadth of the ring of communications satellites circling the Earth in geosynchronous orbit at an altitude of about 35,000 km this week, passing the nearest satellite at a distance of about 1,200 km.

In the galaxy GSN 069, a star has survived a close encounter with a black hole, ending up in orbit around it. Material pulled off the star turned it from a red giant into a white dwarf, and in about a trillion years it may actually become a planet.