See The Universe in a Soap Bubble

At first glance this may appear to show a sun rising over a distant planet but on closer inspection it becomes apparent that Richard Heeks' macro photographs are simply bubbles glistening in the sun.

The 38-year-old from Exminster, near Exeter, says: "Sometimes I stand back and just watch a bubble as it hangs in the air.

I walk around it, admiring it, and I see how the light plays on it. And sometimes I photograph a bubble and see things I didn't expect to see.

I didn't realise these bubbles would look like planets until I caught one or two good ones and then looked at them carefully on the camera screen." Who needs the Hubble Telescope when you've got the Bubble Telescope?

Picture: Richard Heeks / Barcroft Media

ESA's Living Planet Symposium: Innovative SMOS

The satellite carries an innovative sensor to image brightness temperature. As key observables, these images are used as input to derive global maps of soil moisture and ocean salinity. Given the success of the mission so far, the maps are expected to be available by the autumn.

Today, a focus at ESA's Living Planet Symposium is on the innovative SMOS mission, which recently became operational.

Early results are proving very encouraging with its first observations due to be released in early July.

ESA's Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite was launched in November to gather data on moisture in the surface layers of soil and salt in the surface of the oceans.

SMOS will improve our understanding of the water cycle and help advance weather and climate studies.

SMOS has completed an intense programme of calibration and commissioning and, in May, it formally began its operational life delivering data.

Although it is still early days, scientists and users are very impressed with the first snapshots of 'brightness temperature' - the microwave radiation emitted from Earth's surface.

ESA's Mission Manager, Susanne Mecklenburg said, "We still have some way to go before the full soil moisture and ocean salinity data products are available, but the brightness temperature data we have been working on for the past months clearly demonstrate what this advanced mission has to offer."

The satellite carries an innovative sensor to image brightness temperature. As key observables, these images are used as input to derive global maps of soil moisture and ocean salinity. Given the success of the mission so far, the maps are expected to be available by the autumn.

To test the usefulness of SMOS data for numerical weather prediction, data are also being delivered, within three hours of sensing, to meteorological centres such as the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts
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