Vega's PRETTY CubeSat: Unlocking satnav for Earth data

Our planet is being continuously bathed in radio signals from satnav satellites—which are useful for much more than just navigation. Dedicated space missions acquire these signal reflections to amass valuable environmental ...

Small-scale magnetism leads to large-scale solar atmosphere

Thanks to close-up images of the sun obtained during Solar Orbiter's perihelion passage of October 2022, solar physicists have seen how fleeting magnetic fields at the solar surface build up into the solar atmosphere.

Ozone hole grows large again

Measurements from the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite show that this year's ozone hole over Antarctica is one of the biggest on record. The hole, which is what scientists call an "ozone depleting area," reached a size of ...

Big Earth imager to be tested on small Vega CubeSat

A briefcase-sized CubeSat being flown on Europe's next Vega launcher this week will gather 340 km wide views of Earth's vegetation growth, employing a spectral imager originally designed for ESA's decade-in-flight Proba-V.

Vega's fuel-free CubeSats will use wings to keep in formation

Spain's trio of ANSER CubeSats, due to fly on Europe's next Vega launcher, will fly like a flock of birds in orbit—in more ways than one. Keeping in formation by following their leader, the three shoebox-sized satellite ...

Turning up gravity for space fungi study

Fungi in space have been a plot point in Star Trek: Discovery, but they are also a very real problem for astronauts and space stations. United Nations co-sponsored testing by a team from Macau in China subjected fungi to ...

Juice: Why's it taking so long?

At their closest point in orbit, Earth and Jupiter are separated by almost 600 million kilometers. At the time of writing, five months after launch, Juice has already traveled 370 million kilometers, yet in time it's only ...

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