ESA Galileo Launch - Video

On 22 August, at 12:27 GMT/14:27 CEST, a Soyuz Flight VS09 launched Europe’s fifth and six Galileo satellites from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

These new satellites joined four Galileo satellites already in orbit, launched in October 2011 and October 2012 respectively.

This first quartet were ‘In-Orbit Validation’ satellites, serving to demonstrate the Galileo system would function as planned.

Now that work has been done, these ‘Full Operational Capability’ satellites are significant as the first of the rest of the Galileo constellation.

A steady stream of launches will follow to build the complete Galileo satellite constellation.

This deployment phase of the Galileo programme is being managed and funded by the European Commission, with ESA acting as design and procurement agent on behalf of the Commission.

ESA Hubble Iamge: Starbursts in the galaxy NGC 4485, constellation Canes Venatici

This image from NASA/ESA's Hubble Space Telescope shows galaxy NGC 4485 in the constellation of Canes Venatici (The Hunting Dogs). 

The galaxy is irregular in shape, but it hasn’t always been so. 

Part of NGC 4485 has been dragged towards a second galaxy, named NGC 4490 (The Cocoon Galaxy), which lies out of frame to the bottom right of this image.

Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)

Between them, these two galaxies make up a galaxy pair called Arp 269. Their interactions have warped them both, turning them from spiral galaxies into irregular ones.

Arp 269

NGC 4485 is the smaller galaxy in this pair, which provides a fantastic real-world example for astronomers to compare to their computer models of galactic collisions.

The most intense interaction between these two galaxies is all but over; they have made their closest approach and are now separating.

The trail of bright stars and knotty orange clumps that we see here extending out from NGC 4485 is all that connects them, a trail that spans some 24 000 light-years.

Many of the stars in this connecting trail could never have existed without the galaxies’ fleeting romance.

When galaxies interact hydrogen gas is shared between them, triggering intense bursts of star formation.

The orange knots of light in this image are examples of such regions, clouded with gas and dust.

ESA SWARM: Trio Heading for new heights - Video

The magnetic field and electric currents in and around Earth generate complex forces that have immeasurable impact on every day life. 

The field can be thought of as a huge bubble, protecting us from cosmic radiation and charged particles that bombard Earth in solar winds. 

Credit: ESA/ATG medialab

Some tricky manoeuvres are now under way to steer ESA's trio of Swarm satellites into their respective orbits so that they can start delivering the best-ever survey of our magnetic field.
Since the Swarm constellation was launched last November, engineers have been busy putting the satellites through their paces to make sure that the craft and instruments are working correctly.

This commissioning phase is an essential part of the mission before it starts providing data to further our understanding of the complex and constantly changing magnetic field.

Essential to life, the magnetic field protects us from cosmic radiation and charged particles that bombard Earth in solar winds.

Since the intensity of solar activity is currently lower than anticipated, the original plan of where to place the satellites at the beginning of science operations has been reviewed recently by the scientific community and experts in ESA.

Low solar activity means the satellites experience lower atmospheric drag, as clearly demonstrated by ESA's GOCE mission.

Swarm is tasked with measuring and untangling the different magnetic signals that stem from Earth's core, mantle, crust, oceans, ionosphere and magnetosphere.

Launched together, the three identical Swarm satellites were released into adjacent orbits at an altitude of 490 km.

The satellites may be identical, but to optimise sampling in space and time their orbits are different – a key aspect of the mission.

The data acquired from different locations can be used to distinguish between the changes in the magnetic field caused by the Sun's activity and those signals that originate from inside Earth.

The result for Swarm is a slightly different orbit configuration that will save satellite fuel at the beginning of the mission and offer a better return for science at a later stage.

Two satellites are now being lowered to an altitude of about 462 km and an inclination of 87.35°. They will orbit almost side by side, about 150 km apart as they pass over the equator. Over the life of the mission they will both descend to about 300 km.

The third satellite is being placed in a higher orbit of 510 km and at a different inclination of 87.75°, slightly closer to the pole.

Swarm is ESA’s first Earth observation constellation of satellites. 

The trio of identical satellites are designed to identify and measure precisely the different magnetic signals that make up Earth's magnetic field. 

The electrical field instrument, positioned at the front of each satellite, measures plasma density, drift and acceleration in high resolution to characterise the electric field around Earth. 

Credit: ESA/ATG medialab

Ralf Bock

The mission's System Engineer, Ralf Bock, said, "We are taking the satellites to their new heights through careful thrust and aim to achieve the constellation for science operations around mid-April."

Karim Bouridah, the System Manager, added, "We are also continuing to fine-tune the satellite sensors, such as the new electric field instrument."

Each satellite carries a novel instrument to measures the velocity, direction and temperature of incoming ions.

This information will be used to calculate the electric field near the satellite, an important counterpart to the magnetic field for studying processes in the upper atmosphere.

In fact, Swarm is the first mission to make these global, multipoint measurements.

Johnathan Burchill from the University of Calgary explains, "Spanning more than an orbit, the images in this movie demonstrate the capability of the instrument to operate under a wide range of plasma conditions."

Sprial galaxy: Hidden depths of Messier 77 revealed

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured this vivid image of spiral galaxy Messier 77 -- a galaxy in the constellation of Cetus, some 45 million light-years away from us. 

The streaks of red and blue in the image highlight pockets of star formation along the pinwheeling arms, with dark dust lanes stretching across the galaxy's starry center. 

The galaxy belongs to a class of galaxies known as Seyfert galaxies, which have highly ionized gas surrounding an intensely active center. (Credit: NASA, ESA and A. van der Hoeven)

Messier 77 is a galaxy in the constellation of Cetus, some 45 million light-years away from us. Also known as NGC 1068, it is one of the most famous and well-studied galaxies. It is a real star among galaxies, with more papers written about it than many other galaxies put together.

Despite its current fame and striking swirling appearance, the galaxy has been a victim of mistaken identity a couple of times; when it was initially discovered in 1780, the distinction between gas clouds and galaxies was not known, causing finder Pierre Mechain to miss its true nature and label it as a nebula. It was misclassified again when it was subsequently listed in the Messier Catalogue as a star cluster.

Now, however, it is firmly categorised as a barred spiral galaxy, with loosely wound arms and a relatively small central bulge. It is the closest and brightest example of a particular class of galaxies known as Seyfert galaxies -- galaxies that are full of hot, highly ionised gas that glows brightly, emitting intense radiation.

Strong radiation like this is known to come from the heart of Messier 77 -- caused by a very active black hole that is around 15 million times the mass of our Sun.

 Material is dragged towards this black hole and circles around it, heating up and glowing strongly. This region of a galaxy alone, although comparatively small, can be tens of thousands of times brighter than a typical galaxy.

Although no competition for the intense centre, Messier 77's spiral arms are also very bright regions. Dotted along each arm are knotty red clumps -- a signal that new stars are forming.

These baby stars shine strongly, ionising nearby gas which then glows a deep red colour as seen in the image above.

The dust lanes stretching across this image appear as a rusty, brown-red colour due to a phenomenon known as reddening; the dust absorbs more blue light than red light, enhancing its apparent redness.

Hubble Observes Glowing, Fiery Shells of Gas in Sagittarius

It may look like something from "The Lord of the Rings," but this fiery swirl is actually a planetary nebula known as ESO 456-67.

Set against a backdrop of bright stars, the rust-colored object lies in the constellation of Sagittarius (The Archer), in the southern sky.

In this image of ESO 456-67, it is possible to see the various layers of material expelled by the central star. Each appears in a different hue - red, orange, yellow, and green-tinted bands of gas are visible, with clear patches of space at the heart of the nebula.

It is not fully understood how planetary nebulae form such a wide variety of shapes and structures; some appear to be spherical, some elliptical, others shoot material in waves from their polar regions, some look like hourglasses or figures of eight, and others resemble large, messy stellar explosions - to name but a few.

Image Credit: ESA/Hubble and NASA

NGC 5033 is a galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici

NGC 5033 is a galaxy that lies some 40 million light-years away in the northern constellation Canes Venatici.

The image captures striking details of dust lanes winding inward toward the galaxy's bright core and majestic but relatively faint spiral arms that span over 100,000 light-years.

The galaxy is similar in size to our own spiral Milky Way.

Bubble Nebula in the constellation of Cassopeia

Telegraph reader Simon de Visscher sent us this astronomical picture of the bubble nebula, or NGC7635, in the constellation of Cassopeia. 

Picture: Simon de Visscher

NASA Hubble Wide Field Image: M107 - A Field of Stars

Image credit: ESA/NASA

The Hubble Space Telescope captured a crowd of stars that looks rather like a stadium darkened before a show, lit only by the flashbulbs of the audience’s cameras.

Yet the many stars of this object, known as Messier 107, are not a fleeting phenomenon, at least by human reckoning of time -- these ancient stars have gleamed for many billions of years.

Messier 107 is one of more than 150 globular star clusters found around the disc of the Milky Way galaxy. These spherical collections each contain hundreds of thousands of extremely old stars and are among the oldest objects in the Milky Way. The origin of globular clusters and their impact on galactic evolution remains somewhat unclear, so astronomers continue to study them.

Messier 107 can be found in the constellation of Ophiuchus (The Serpent Bearer) and is located about 20,000 light-years from our solar system.

French astronomer Pierre Méchain first noted the object in 1782, and British astronomer William Herschel documented it independently a year later. A Canadian astronomer, Helen Sawyer Hogg, added Messier 107 to Charles Messier's famous astronomical catalogue in 1947.

This picture was obtained with the Wide Field Camera of Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys.

Seeds of Massive Black Holes Found at the Center of the Milky Way

A research team at Keio University, led by Associate Professor Tomoharu Oka, has discovered intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH) candidates at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy.

It is about 30,000 light-years from the solar system in the direction of Sagittarius.

IMBH candidates are considered to be the "seeds" that form and grow massive black holes.

Using radio telescopes, the research team led by Associate Professor Oka has found four "warm, dense (more than 50 degrees Kelvin, more than 10,000 hydrogen molecules per cubic centimeter)" masses of molecular gas at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. Three of those masses of molecular gas have been expanding.

This research suggests that supernova explosions caused the expansion. It is estimated that the largest explosion that occurred in the masses of molecular gas is equivalent to 200 supernova explosions.

On the other hand, the age of the gas masses is approximately 60,000 years old. Therefore, it can be inferred that a huge star cluster is buried in one of the gas masses.

The mass of the cluster (more than 100,000 times the mass of the sun) is comparable to the largest star cluster found in the Milky Way Galaxy. It is thought that IMBHs are formed within such huge star clusters.

Eventually, IMBHs born near the center of the Milky Way Galaxy form/expand into a supermassive black hole at the nucleus of the galaxy.

Details Many galaxies contain enormous amounts of molecular gas in small areas near their nuclei. Highly condensed molecular gas is a birthplace of lots of stars. Moreover, it is considered to closely relate to activities of galactic nuclei.

Therefore, it is important to investigate the physical state and chemical properties of molecular gas at galaxy centers through observation.

VST Image: Star-forming Region Messier 17 - Omega Nebula

The first released VST image shows the spectacular star-forming region Messier 17, also known as the Omega Nebula or the Swan Nebula, as it has never been seen before. 

This vast region of gas, dust and hot young stars lies in the heart of the Milky Way in the constellation of Sagittarius (The Archer). 

The VST field of view is so large that the entire nebula, including its fainter outer parts, is captured — and retains its superb sharpness across the entire image. 

The data was processed using the Astro-WISE software system developed by E.A. Valentijn and collaborators at Groningen and elsewhere.

Credit: ESO/INAF-VST/OmegaCAM. Acknowledgement: OmegaCen/Astro-WISE/Kapteyn Institute

When Galaxies Collide: Tinkerbell Triplet

Probably the cutest merger, the Tinkerbell Triplet is the result of three galaxies coming together to form a fey object.

The collision is located about 650 million light-years away and is seen here in both visible and infrared wavelengths.

Image: ESO

When Galaxies Collide: Interacting Strongly

The galaxies seen here — NGC 6621, on the right, and NGC 6622, to the left – are seen about 100 million years into their merger.

Gravitational forces have wrapped a long tail of stars around both galaxies as well as triggering an extensive burst of stellar formation.

The pair are located in the constellation Draco, approximately 300 million light-years from Earth.

Image: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration and W. Keel (University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa)

When Galaxies Collide: Skater Galaxies

Connected via a long stellar bridge, the two galaxies in UGC 8335 are pulling one another gravitationally with all their might.

The collision is happening 400 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major.

Image: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration and A. Evans (University of Virginia, Charlottesville/NRAO/Stony Brook University)

When Galaxies Collide: Quartet Galaxy

An impressive arc of four galaxies can be seen smashing together in this image.

The object is known as ESO 255-7 and is located 550 million light-years away in the constellation Puppis.

While three galaxies are clearly visible, the top object is made up of two distinct galaxies that have partially merged already.

Image: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration and A. Evans (University of Virginia, Charlottesville/NRAO/Stony Brook University)

When Galaxies Collide: Mirror Image

Two galaxies appear as mirror reflections of one another as they enter the first stages of their collision.

The object is known as NGC 5331 and is located 450 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo.

Image: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration and A. Evans (University of Virginia, Charlottesville/NRAO/Stony Brook University)

When Galaxies Collide: Middle Merger

The galaxies seen here are caught mid-merger.

The bodies of the two parent galaxies have more or less fused but two independent central nuclei can still be seen in the image.

The collision is thought to have begun approximately 300 million years ago.

This object, known as NGC 520, is one of the brightest galaxy pairs on the sky, and is located about 100 million light-years away toward the constellation Pisces.

Image: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration and B. Whitmore (STScI)

When Galaxies Collide: Linked Arms

The two galaxies seen here, NGC 6050 and IC 1179, are located about 450 million light-years away in the constellation Hercules.

The spiral bodies are seen crashing together, with an enormous eddy of stars seeming to form between their conjoined arms.

This object is part of the Hercules Galaxy Cluster, itself located within the Great Wall of superclusters, the largest known structure in the universe.

Image: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration and K. Noll (STScI)

When Galaxies Collide: Cosmic Owl

The odd object, known as ESO 148-2, looks like some weird water bug seen head-on.

Located about 600 million light-years from us, it is the result of two galaxies merging, with their cores located in the central “body” and a great deal of matter sweeping out into two curved “wings.”

Image: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration and A. Evans (University of Virginia, Charlottesville/NRAO/Stony Brook University)

When Galaxies Collide: Early Merger

A very wide 130,000 light-years separates the two galaxies in the object known as 2MASXJ09133888-1019196.

But they are caught in one another’s gravitational spell and have begun a slow dance that will one day result in a merger.

The galaxies are about 700 million light-years away in the constellation Hydra.

Image: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration and A. Evans (University of Virginia, Charlottesville/NRAO/Stony Brook University)

When Galaxies Collide: Dusty Merger

Dust from the foreground galaxy in this image obscures much of the action.

The merger, AM1316-241, is found 400 million light-years away in the constellation Hydra, and is created from two galaxies colliding.

The background light appears red as it travels through the dust.

Image: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration and W. Keel (University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa)