LMO and ClearSpace verify visual navigation systems for close orbital encounters at ESA's GRALS facility in ESTEC. As part of the DIOSSA activity, they are developing autonomous VBN/SSA modules for capturing, servicing, and deorbiting non-cooperative objects, with the support of the Luxembourg LuxIMPULSE program.
Astronomers using the James Webb telescope have recorded a huge cloud of helium escaping from the atmosphere of exoplanet WASP-107b, 210 light-years away. This is the first detailed observation of atmospheric leakage in real time with such high precision.
NASA's AVIRIS-5 spectrometer, in collaboration with USGS, conducts airborne spectroscopy over the American West to accelerate the discovery of lithium and other critical minerals. Within the GEMx campaign, based on the Earth MRI initiative, open data are collected that help industry and communities in planning sustainable research.
The structural model of ROSE-L has successfully withstood vibration and acoustic tests, confirming readiness for final integration in Rome. As a new Copernicus mission in the L-band, it will provide more robust data for soil moisture, biomass, ice and floods and will complement Sentinel-1 with consistent imagery independent of clouds and night.
The SPHERE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope images debris disks around young stars and reveals belts similar to our asteroid and Kuiper belts. Such observations help understand how planets form, where small bodies reside, and how special the Solar System is in the Milky Way.
Badain Jaran on the Alxa Plateau is China's third-largest desert: a labyrinth of megadunes up to 460 m, more than a hundred saline and freshwater lakes, and the rare phenomenon of “singing” sands. Sentinel-1 radar images in September 2025 reveal dune density, lake edge dynamics, and seasonal snow on crests. The landscape is simultaneously geologically stable and climatically sensitive, with underground inflows feeding oases and high biodiversity between sand and water.