News

Following a series of tests conducted in space over the past five months, the ESA-JAXA BepiColombo mission has successfully completed its near-Earth commissioning phase and is now ready for the operations that will take place during the cruise and, eventually, for its scientific investigations at Mercury.

Global sea level rose on average by 3.2 mm a year between 1993 and 2018, but hidden within this average is the fact that the rate of rise has been accelerating over the last few years. 

During the months of Marchand April 2019, several forest fires broke out in Valcea County, Romania. Such events can be monitored using Earth Observation satellite data, which provide important information on the state of the affected areas before, during and after the fires. This allows authorities to assess the situation and make informed intervention decisions, as well as evaluate the damage.

The winds of Mars are responsible for myriad features across the planet’s surface –  including the dark dunes and wispy, filament-like streaks seen in this image from ESA’s Mars Express.

On 7 March 2019, the high-power laser system (HPLS) from the Extreme Light Infrastructure — Nuclear Physics (ELI-NP) has reached the power of 10 PetaWatts, in a world premiere. In addition to applications in the areas of research, energy and medicine, a very important and immediate application of this high-power laser systemis to generate space radiation environments similar to those found in space, for example, near planet Jupiter.