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    • Venus’s pale yellow clouds may hide something surprisingly dark
      on September 13, 2026 at 3:44 am

      A century-old mystery in Venus’s clouds just became more intriguing, as scientists calculated how strongly the unidentified material behind its dark ultraviolet patterns must absorb light. The results sharply narrow the possibilities and could help future spacecraft determine whether the mysterious substance is organic, inorganic, or something unexpected.

    • Mercury’s surface reveals a surprisingly fiery past
      on September 12, 2026 at 1:28 am

      Scientists have discovered that Mercury’s surface contains far less silicon dioxide than previously thought, pointing to an unexpectedly hot volcanic past. The finding suggests ancient lava may have originated from deeper, more extensively melted parts of the planet’s mantle.

    • The Moon may have formed intact just hours after a giant collision
      on September 11, 2026 at 1:40 am

      Scientists have discovered that the Moon-forming collision may have depended heavily on how hot and physically strong early Earth and Theia were. New simulations found that some impacts create the familiar disk of debris that later becomes the Moon, while others can produce an intact Moon in only about five hours. The results challenge the long-standing assumption that the enormous collision could be modeled as if both worlds behaved mostly like fluids.

    • Have we found alien life? Hundreds of scientists weigh in
      on September 9, 2026 at 11:13 am

      Two major alien-life announcements in 2025 generated enormous excitement, but most astrobiologists remained unconvinced. Only 6.6% of surveyed experts thought possible biological molecules on K2-18b probably represented extraterrestrial life, while 15.1% said the same about intriguing mineral patterns in a Martian rock.

    • Astronomers detect ancient hydrogen signal that could help map the Universe
      on September 9, 2026 at 3:06 am

      Astronomers have detected an exceptionally faint hydrogen radio signal from billions of light-years away using South Africa’s MeerKAT telescope. Instead of finding galaxies one at a time, the technique measures their combined hydrogen glow across enormous stretches of space. The successful detection shows that astronomers may soon be able to create much larger 3D maps of the Universe.

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          • Week in images: 07-11 Sep 2026
            on September 11, 2026 at 1:00 pm

            Week in images: 07-11 Sep 2026 Discover our week through the lens

          • A team of teams like never before: rehearsing a unique launch at ESA mission control
            on September 11, 2026 at 8:00 am

            On 15 September, two spacecraft will leave Earth together aboard the same launcher from Europe’s spaceport in Kourou: FLEX, ESA’s photosynthesis mission, and Sentinel-3C, Copernicus’ newest satellite monitoring Earth’s oceans, land, ice and atmosphere.At ESA’s European Space Operations Centre (ESOC), two independent mission teams are preparing to operate the spacecraft in parallel in a closely coordinated effort. As launch approaches, they are rehearsing side by side to prepare not only for their own missions, but also for the moments when the two operations intersect.

          • Name our dino – ESA’s Hera asteroid mission mascot!
            on September 10, 2026 at 2:00 pm

            The European Space Agency’s Hera asteroid mission for planetary defence has a cartoon dinosaur for its mascot – because dinos were made extinct after an asteroid impact, but while they didn’t have a space agency, people do! Now we’re asking you to supply our dino with a name, to win a place at November’s Hera arrival celebration.

          • MTM’s selfie footage of BepiColombo’s eight-year journey
            on September 9, 2026 at 12:00 pm

            Video: 00:04:20 Witness how over the last eight years, the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission has been travelling through the inner Solar System and aligning itself with Mercury’s orbit. So far, it has travelled 9.9 billion km and completed nine ‘planetary flybys’ to help steer its way. In the video, you can see the spacecraft fly past Earth once, Venus twice, and Mercury six times. Since launching on 20 October 2018, BepiColombo has been travelling as a composite spacecraft made up of ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO), JAXA’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (Mio), and the Mercury Transfer Module (MTM) that carried the two orbiters to Mercury. We’ve shared photos and videos before, taken by the spacecraft’s three monitoring cameras (M-CAMs) on MTM. But this is the first time we’ve compiled them into a video of the mission’s complete journey so far. The monitoring cameras were designed to keep an eye on the spacecraft itself. In the foreground, you can see one of MTM’s solar arrays (M-CAM 1, left), MPO’s medium-gain antenna and magnetometer boom (M-CAM 2, middle), and MPO’s high-gain antenna (M-CAM 3, right). The images have been positioned and oriented to approximately reflect the relative fields of view of the three M-CAMs. As the M-CAMs have no shutter, many of the original images contain streaks due to light falling on the detectors during image read-out. These streaks have largely been removed for this video. BepiColombo’s arrival at Mercury began on 3 September 2026, with MTM separating from the spacecraft stack. The two stacked orbiters will enter orbit around Mercury in November, and separate from each other on 9–10 December 2026. From that moment on, BepiColombo will be the first mission with two spacecraft orbiting planet Mercury at the same time. MTM has no computer to control itself, and lacks an antenna to communicate with Earth. Now that it has separated from the rest, it will circle the Sun indefinitely, letting the two science modules get to work. We expect MTM to pass by Mercury at a distance of around 130 000 km in late October. After that it will enter interplanetary space, and not get any closer to Mercury.For more about BepiColombo, click here.For the raw M-CAM images, click here.

          • Watch: FLEX and Sentinel-3C launch on Vega-C
            on September 9, 2026 at 9:56 am

            The European Space Agency’s FLEX satellite and the Copernicus Sentinel-3C satellite are scheduled to launch together aboard a Vega-C rocket on 15 September at 03:21 CEST (14 September at 22:21 local time). Watch the VV30 launch live from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, with coverage starting at 02:50 CEST.

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