ESA Top Multimedia

On World Environment Day, the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission brings us an amazing view from space of Baku, capital of Azerbaijan, hosting this year’s celebration.

This image shows an ‘embedding’ from Tessera, focusing on the Cambridge, UK.

Webb's MIRI image of the interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS in three different light wavelengths

Space science for your heart

ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot published this picture as part of a set on social media with the following caption:

Day 108, orbit 1675 — Our orbital path regularly takes us over countless breathtaking atolls, appearing like brilliant drops of turquoise scattered across the deep blue of both the Pacific and Indian oceans. These ecosystems, essential to a lot of marine and coastal species, face threats resulting from human activity, particularly the accelerating impacts of climate change, like ocean warming and rising sea levels.
From orbit, it becomes extremely clear that for life to continue thriving, all our planet’s ecosystems must be protected.

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Jour 108, orbite 1675 – Notre trajectoire nous amène régulièrement à survoler d’innombrables atolls, de lumineuses gouttes d’un bleu turquoise dispersées sur le bleu profond des océans Pacifique et Indien. La vue est à couper le souffle. Ces écosystèmes, essentiels à de nombreuses espèces marines et côtières, sont menacés par les activités humaines, en particulier par l’accélération des effets du changement climatique, tels que le réchauffement des océans et l’élévation du niveau de la mer.
Depuis l’orbite, il est très clair que pour que la vie continue de prospérer, tous les écosystèmes de notre planète doivent être protégés.

Launch of the ESA EAC beekeeping club

The molten core, which swirls about 2200 km beneath our feet, generates Earth’s geomagnetic field as it moves. By measuring small changes in the magnetic field, scientists have historically observed the core flowing mainly westwards. But in 2010, it unexpectedly changed direction deep beneath the Pacific Ocean and started moving strongly eastwards. The reasons for this unexplained reversal in the flow of molten material are still a mystery but satellites, including ESA’s Swarm and CryoSat, provided data that has now been analysed and published.

The study, published in the Journal Studies of Earth’s Deep Interior, analyses both ground observations and satellite data between 1997 and 2025. The video shows the large scale of flow in the molten core between 1997 and 2025. The overturn of the flow below the Pacific and the main stable structures of the flow have been isolated. Each arrow indicates the movement of the core liquid horizontal to Earth’s surface.

Read full story: Insights into Earth’s molten outer core from space

On 20 May, ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot conducted an in-flight call with selected media representatives live aboard the International Space Station. During the discussion, Sophie shared insights into life and research in orbit, including scientific experiments supporting human health, climate science and future space exploration.

After an intense few weeks the crew took time to celebrate together with a shared meal proposed by ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot.

It’s a long‑standing tradition: each ESA astronaut works with a chef to create a few special dishes reserved for rare occasions — known as “bonus food”. Sophie’s bonus food was created by multi‑Michelin‑starred chef Anne‑Sophie Pic, offering the crew a taste of French gastronomy far from Earth.

Bonus food, tailored to specific crew members, makes up around one tenth of an astronaut’s menu. Astronauts say it adds variety to their meals, supports mental well‑being, and helps strengthen bonds among the crew in orbit.

This timelapse shows ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot tidying the European Columbus laboratory aboard the International Space Station. Keeping the Station organised is crucial for crew safety and smooth operations, ensuring that science and maintenance can continue without interruption.

Every item has its place, and as crews rotate every few months, ground teams play an important role in helping locate any item needed for an experiment or a maintenance task.

The first‑of‑its‑kind ship‑to‑ship call between astronauts on deep‑space and low Earth orbit missions.On 7 April, the Artemis II crew of NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, together with CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, spoke with Expedition 74 astronauts Chris Williams, Jack Hathaway and Jessica Meir of NASA, and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Sophie Adenot aboard the International Space Station.

Today, at 17:07 local time (Pacific) on 10 April (01:07 BST/02:07 CEST on 11 April), NASA's Orion spacecraft and its crew splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean, marking the successful end of the Artemis II mission, humankind's first journey around the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972.

ESA's European Service Module powered the spacecraft over 1 million kilometres through in deep space, providing air and water for the astronauts, generating electrical power via its four solar arrays, maintaining thermal control and delivering propulsion.

Mostly built by European industry under ESA leadership, the European Service Module was assembled by Airbus Defence and Space in Bremen, Germany, with contributions from companies across 13 European countries, involving 20 main contractors and over 100 European suppliers.

Throughout the mission, European engineers supported operations around the clock from ESA's centres in the Netherlands and Germany, as well as alongside NASA teams in Houston, ensuring Orion and its crew completed their journey safely around the Moon and back home.

European engineers in the Eagle mission control room at ESA's technical site in the Netherlands

 

This timelapse was published by ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot on her social media with the following caption:

[EN] Another experiment, and another timelapse! This time, I’m working with the Fluid Science Laboratory (FSL), one of the science facilities inside ESA’s Columbus module.

The experiment is called PASTA-3 and investigates the formation and evolution of emulsions over time when there is no gravity to interfere. Emulsions are mixtures of two or more liquids that do not usually mix, such as oil and water.

During this session, I installed 3 experiment containers with new samples inside the FSL. Each PASTA sample has a different concentration of surfactant (an agent that helps liquids mix) and Xanthan Gum in addition to a water and oil mixture.

This experiment helps scientists better understand and model the fundamental physics of emulsions. That knowledge has numerous applications on Earth, including:
improving food quality and shelf life (milk, dough, mayonnaise, candy…), enhancing the stability and effectiveness of medicines (including vaccines) and cosmetics, optimising processes in industrial and advanced manufacturing sectors (oil, chemicals …).

PASTA-3 is one of the 36 European experiments I get to work on during my mission! Go science!

(PASTA is short for PArticle STAbilised emulsions experiment.)

 

[FR] Nouvelle expérience, et nouveau timelapse ! Cette fois-ci, cela se passe dans le Fluid Science Laboratory (FSL), l’une des installations scientifiques situées à l’intérieur du module Columbus de l’ESA.

L’expérience s’appelle PASTA 3 : elle étudie la formation et l’évolution des émulsions au fil du temps en l’absence de gravité. Une émulsion, c’est un mélange de deux ou plusieurs liquides qui ne se mélangent pas facilement, comme l’huile et l’eau.

Lors de cette session, j’ai installé trois lots de nouveaux échantillons dans le FSL. Chaque échantillon PASTA présente une concentration différente de tensioactif (un agent qui aide les liquides à se mélanger) et de gomme xanthane, en plus d’un mélange d’eau et d’huile.

Cette expérience aide les scientifiques à mieux comprendre et modéliser la physique fondamentale des émulsions avec à la clé de nombreuses applications sur Terre, comme par exemple:
l’amélioration de la qualité des aliments et de leur durée de conservation (lait, pâte, mayonnaise, confiseries…), le renforcement de la stabilité et de l’efficacité des médicaments (y compris les vaccins) et des cosmétiques, l’optimisation des procédés industriels et de fabrication avancée (pétrole, chimie…).

PASTA 3 est l’une des 36 expériences européennes sur lesquelles j’ai la chance de travailler durant ma mission ! Vive la science !

(PASTA est l’abréviation de PArticle STAbilised emulsions experiment.)