European Space Agency
Every Cosmic Herald story on European Space Agency — missions, launches, discoveries, and the business of space, newest first.
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Science & Discovery
How black holes actually grow: new X-ray observations are filling in the picture
Black holes grow by consuming nearby gas and dust — but the details of how that accretion works, and how it produces the relativistic jets that extend for millions of light-years, are still being worked out. A new generation of X-ray telescopes is catching the process in action.
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Stargazing
Saturn's rings are nearly edge-on. Here's why that's worth watching.
Saturn's rings appear to open and close as the planet orbits the Sun, presenting a full face every fifteen years or so — and then nearly vanishing as they tilt edge-on. We are approaching one of those disappearing acts. Understanding the geometry, and how to watch it unfold, makes an ordinary telescope into a front-row seat for orbital mechanics.
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Missions
Solar Orbiter flew closer to the Sun than any imaging spacecraft before it. What it saw was unexpected.
ESA's Solar Orbiter has returned the closest images ever taken of the Sun, revealing thousands of tiny flares — dubbed 'campfires' — across the solar surface. It is also the first spacecraft designed to image the Sun's poles, solving a geometry problem that has frustrated solar physicists for decades.
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NASA & Agencies
ESA's next decade in space: gravitational wave detectors, exoplanet atmospheres, and Venus.
The European Space Agency's science program for the 2030s includes LISA (a space-based gravitational wave observatory), Ariel (systematic exoplanet atmosphere survey), and EnVision (a Venus orbiter). Together they address three of the biggest open questions in astrophysics.
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Missions
After seven years of flying past planets, BepiColombo has finally reached Mercury
ESA and JAXA's BepiColombo mission spent seven years threading gravity assists around Earth, Venus, and Mercury before finally entering Mercury orbit in late 2025. Now its two orbiters are mapping the innermost planet's magnetic field, geology, and interior with unprecedented precision.
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NASA & Agencies
ESA's JUICE is threading five planetary flybys to reach the most interesting moons in the solar system
Launched in April 2023, JUICE — Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer — will arrive at Jupiter in 2031 after a gravity-assist marathon. Its destination is Ganymede, where it will become the first spacecraft ever to orbit a moon other than our own.
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Astronomy
The Milky Way's skeleton is made of ghost stars — and Gaia is mapping every one
Gaia has revealed dozens of stellar streams threading through the galaxy — thin ribbons of stars from ancient satellite galaxies and globular clusters torn apart over billions of years. Astronomers are now reading them for evidence of dark matter and the Milky Way's violent past.
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Missions
Still to Fly in 2026: Roman, a Moon-Lander Wave, India's Crew Capsule Test, and Japan's Phobos Grab
Artemis II is done — but 2026's manifest isn't. NASA's Roman Space Telescope launches August 30, four lunar landers chase year-end windows, Gaganyaan-1 rehearses India's first crewed flight, and JAXA's MMX departs for Phobos. What's still scheduled, what slipped, and which dates to believe.
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Missions
In 2029 an asteroid will pass closer than our satellites — and two spacecraft will be waiting
On April 13, 2029, the asteroid Apophis will skim just 32,000 kilometres above Earth, visible to the naked eye for billions of people. It will miss us — but NASA and ESA are sending spacecraft to watch what Earth's gravity does to it, a free experiment in planetary defense.
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Astronomy
Europe's 'dark universe detective' is building a 3D map of the invisible cosmos
Most of the universe is made of things we cannot see — dark matter and dark energy. ESA's Euclid telescope is surveying billions of galaxies across ten billion years of history to map that invisible scaffolding, with its first major cosmology data release due this October.
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NASA & Agencies
The orbital junkyard is getting dangerous — and the first cleanup missions are flying
Low Earth orbit is filling with dead satellites and shattered debris moving at bullet speeds. After years of warnings, the first missions designed to grab and de-orbit junk are now reaching space, led by Europe's ClearSpace and Japan's Astroscale.
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Missions
Meet the Artemis III crew: a record-holder, a European pilot, and a mission that isn't a landing
NASA has named the four astronauts assigned to Artemis III — Randy Bresnik, Luca Parmitano, Andre Douglas, and Frank Rubio. The roster is heavy on experience and, for the first time on an Artemis crew, includes a European Space Agency astronaut.
