Plant hormone makes space farming a possibility

With scarce nutrients and weak gravity, growing potatoes on the moon or on other planets seems unimaginable. But the plant hormone strigolactone could make it possible, plant biologists from the University of Zurich have ...

Leaky atmosphere linked to lightweight planet

The Red Planet's low gravity and lack of magnetic field makes its outermost atmosphere an easy target to be swept away by the solar wind, but new evidence from ESA's Mars Express spacecraft shows that the Sun's radiation ...

Engineers consider how to collect dust from low-gravity surfaces

Analysing the dusty layers of low-gravity moons or asteroids using robots is on the agenda for ESA's exploration of the Solar System. Engineers are thinking of ways to collect and analyse the surface dust on far-away worlds. ...

Inside Rosetta's comet

There are no large caverns inside Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. ESA's Rosetta mission has made measurements that clearly demonstrate this, solving a long-standing mystery.

Why is it tough to land on a comet?

Why is landing on a comet so difficult and what does this tell us about future missions to comets and asteroids?

Lunar explorers will walk at higher speeds than thought

Anyone who has seen the movies of Neil Armstrong's first bounding steps on the moon couldn't fail to be intrigued by his unusual walking style. But, contrary to popular belief, the astronaut's peculiar walk was not the result ...

Mystery of the missing waves on Titan

One of the most shocking discoveries of the past 10 years is how much the landscape of Saturn's moon Titan resembles Earth. Like our own blue planet, the surface of Titan is dotted with lakes and seas; it has river channels, ...

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