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Vera C. Rubin Observatory

Look inside the revolutionary Vera C. Rubin Observatory

25 June 2025

×îÐÂÂ鶹ÊÓƵ's behind the scenes look at the telescope about to open a new eye on the universe

Vera Rubin Observatory has already found thousands of new asteroids

23 June 2025

In just 10 hours of observing the night sky, the powerful new telescope detected more than 2000 new asteroids, including a few that will pass near Earth

One half of the moon is hotter than the other

14 May 2025

Anomalies in the moon’s gravitational field suggest our satellite’s insides are warmer on one side than the other – which means that its interior is asymmetric
Mars appears light blue in this near-infrared image from the Hera spacecraft, with its moon Deimos represented by a dark mark towards the centre of the image

Hera asteroid mission takes stunning images of Mars’s moon Deimos

13 March 2025

A mission to survey the results of a deliberate crash between an asteroid and a NASA spacecraft has taken stunning images of Mars and its moon Deimos

Saturn gains 128 moons, giving it more than the other planets combined

11 March 2025

Saturn has dozens of new moons, bringing it to a total of 274. All of the new moons are between 2 and 4 kilometres wide, but at what point is a rock too small to be a moon?

Most detailed survey of particles around the sun reveals new mysteries

3 February 2025

More than a decade of data about the particles zipping around our sun could be used to solve many mysteries, from the behaviour of individual particles to the history of our solar system – while raising new questions

How to see all the solar system’s planets in the night sky at once

20 January 2025

All seven of the other planets in our solar system are about to become visible at once in a great planetary alignment – here’s how to spot the celestial show
n 2025 BepiColombo image1 Top three images from BepiColombo's sixth Mercury flyby 09/01/2025 619 views 4 likes ESA / Science & Exploration / Space Science / BepiColombo On 8 January 2025, the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission flew past Mercury for the sixth time, successfully completing the final ?gravity assist manoeuvre? needed to steer it into orbit around the planet in late 2026. The spacecraft flew just a few hundred kilometres above the planet's north pole. Close-up images expose possibly icy craters whose floors are in permanent shadow, and the vast sunlit northern plains. At 06:59 CET, BepiColombo flew just 295 km above Mercury's surface on the planet's cold, dark night side. Around seven minutes later, it passed directly over the Mercury's north pole before getting clear views of the planet's sunlit north. European Space Agency (ESA) Director General Josef Aschbacher revealed the first image during his Annual Press Briefing on 9 January. As during BepiColombo's previous flybys, the spacecraft's monitoring cameras (M-CAMs) did not disappoint. This flyby also marks the last time that the mission's M-CAMs get up-close views of Mercury, as the spacecraft module they are attached to will separate from the mission's two orbiters ? ESA?s Mercury Planetary Orbiter and JAXA?s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter ? before they enter orbit around Mercury in late 2026. Celebrating the M-CAMs' final hurrah, let's explore the best three images from BepiColombo's sixth close encounter with the little planet, and what they reveal about mysterious Mercury.

BepiColombo snaps Mercury's dark craters and volcanic plains

9 January 2025

The BepiColombo spacecraft is due to start orbiting Mercury next year, but a recent flyby has captured breathtaking images of its pockmarked surface
Uranus

Our only visit to Uranus came at an unusual time for the planet

11 November 2024

Voyager 2 flew by Uranus in 1986, giving us our only up-close look at the planet – but unusual space weather just before the craft arrived has given us a misleading idea about the planet’s magnetic field

NASA set to launch Europa probe to search for signs of habitability

14 October 2024

A 6000-kilogram spacecraft will embark on a six-year journey to Jupiter to explore whether its icy moon Europa has the conditions to support life

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