• Surprise picture for WISE's fourth anniversary

    In an unexpected juxtaposition of cosmic objects that are actually quite far from each other, a newly released image from NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) shows a dying star, called the Helix nebula, surrounded by the tracks of asteroids. The

  • Earth-watcher Proba-V ready to provide global vegetation data

    Launched by a Vega rocket from French Guiana in the early hours of May 7, 2013, the Proba-V miniaturised satellite is designed to map land cover and vegetation growth across the entire planet every two days at a resolution of 330 m.

    Today, less than seven months

  • Space-based solar observatories ready for Comet ISON

    Comet ISON will pass through the Sun's atmosphere at just about 1.2 million km (730 000 miles) above the solar surface on November 28, 2013 at 18:44 UTC.

    It is now entering the fields of view of space-based solar observatories and will be viewed first

  • 15th anniversary of International Space Station

    On November 20, 1998, the first module for International Space Station (ISS) was successfully launched on a Russian Proton rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome Site 81 in Kazakhstan to a 400 km (250 miles) high orbit with a designed lifetime of at least 15 years.

    Module

  • MAVEN on its way to study what went wrong on Mars

    The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) mission is scheduled for launch today, November 18, 2013. The two-hour launch window opens at 18:28 UTC. This will be the first mission devoted to understanding the Martian upper atmosphere and what