The ESA and Roscosmos’ TGO (Trace Gas Orbiter) space probe and the lander Schiaparelli have reached Mars completing the first phase of the first mission within the ExoMars program, started with their launch on March 14, 2016. Schiaparelli had separated from the TGO on October 16 with some thrill because the maneuver was successful but its telemetry data arrived with considerable delay.
ESA has confirmed that its Rosetta space probe has completed the controlled landing on the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, in the region called Ma’at. This event marks the end of the Rosetta mission because it was not designed for landing, which consequently was violent. Some instruments remained active until the end to send data until it was possible.
An article published in the journal “Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society” describes a research about the outbursts detected by ESA’s Rosetta space probe on the surface of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. During the three months around its closest approach to the Sun, on August 13, 2015, Rosetta’s cameras captured 34 outbursts. A team led by Jean-Baptiste Vincent from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany, traced their origin on the comet’s surface.
ESA has published the first 3D map of the Milky Way obtained from the Gaia space probe, the most detailed of its kind ever produced. It’s a catalog of more than a billion stars with data that are two hundred more accurate than those of its predecessor, Hipparcos, whose mission lasted between 1989 and 1993.
Two articles published in the journal “Astronomy and Astrophysics” describe the latest updates regarding the analysis of the data collected by ESA’s Planck Surveyor space probe between 2009 and 2013. The latest results show that the first stars started forming about 700 million years after the Big Bang, about 150 million years later than earlier analyzes indicated.
