Andreas Mogensen, Aidyn Aimbetov and Gennady Padalka assisted after their landing with the Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft (Image NASA TV)

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A few hours ago, cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Aidyn Aimbetov and Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen came back to Earth on the Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft, landed without problems in Kazakhstan. Padalka spent just over five months on the International Space Station, where he arrived on March 28, 2015 as part of Expedition 43. Aimbetov and Mogensen spent only a few days on the Station, where they arrived on September 4, 2015.

Occator crater and the white spots on the dwarf planet Ceres (Image NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS)

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NASA has released a new image of the now famous white spots of Ceres, one of the most mysterious geological features found on this dwarf planet. The Dawn space probe is currently mapping its surface from an altitude of 1,470 km (915 miles) and that allowed to take pictures much more detailed than the ones previously available. These new images have a resolution of 140 meters (450 feet) per pixel and are providing new information about the white spots waiting for in-depth analyzes.

The Astro-E2, then renamed Suzaku, satellite during its test phase (Photo NASA)

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In recent days, the Japanese Suzaku space observatory has been deactivated. On August 26, 2015, JAXA, the Japanese space agency, communicated the decision to terminate the mission of this satellite specialized in X-ray astronomy. Communications between the mission control center and Suzaku had become intermittent since June 1, 2015 and JAXA, after trying to restore them, decided to start the deactivation procedures.

The Magellanic Clouds and an interstellar filament seen by the Planck Surveyor satellite (Image ESA and the Planck Collaboration)

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ESA has released an image created using data from the Planck Surveyor satellite offering a very special portrait of an interstellar filament and the Magellanic Clouds. Those are two dwarf galaxies that are part of the Milky Way’s neighborhood and Planck detected the dust between the stars within them during its mission. The main purpose of this satellite was to study the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB or CMBR), but the data collected are also useful to map the galaxies’ dust and magnetic fields.

Artistic concept of NASA's SMAP satellite wit its huge rotating mesh reflector (Image NASA)

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NASA announced the impossibility to reactivate the radar of its SMAP (Soil Moisture Active Passive) satellite. The instrument ceased to function on July 7 and NASA engineers had been trying to reactivate it for weeks but without success. SMAP is an observatory designed to monitor the moisture present in the top 5 centimeters (2 inches) of soil and now will continue its mission in a limited way.