Mars Express orbits Mars and did not fly through the atmosphere. So where do such (see ⬆️) fly by videos come from?

They are processed data, combining a mosaic (so collection of many images combined into one) made from orbit with topography information and then rendered into a video, based on a pre-defined camera path through the landscape.

Find more info here: ▶️ https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Videos/2025/10/Fly_over_Xanthe_Terra_with_Mars_Express

#ESA #MarsExpress #astrophysics #Mars #Space

Three minutes of enjoyment and geology: Fly over Mars's Xanthe Terra region with #ESA #MarsExpress

▶️ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E6Cn5RSe_I

⬇️ for more info!

#mars #astrophysics #space

The ESA Juice (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) spacecraft gravity-assist flyby of Venus was successfully executed at 05:28 UTC earlier this morning. No pics are expected.

Juice’s next planetary flybys will be at Earth in Sept 2026 and Jan 2029.

Congratulations to the team.
👏
https://bsky.app/profile/operations.esa.int/post/3lxrcin7z522v
5/n
#ESA#ESAJuice

The ESA Juice (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) spacecraft gravity-assist flyby of Venus was successfully executed at 05:28 UTC earlier this morning. No pics are expected.

Juice’s next planetary flybys will be at Earth in Sept 2026 and Jan 2029.

Congratulations to the team.
👏
https://bsky.app/profile/operations.esa.int/post/3lxrcin7z522v
5/n
#ESA#ESAJuice

FYI - during this Venus flyby, Juice is using its steerable medium-gain antenna for communication with earth. The larger high-gain antenna will remain pointed towards the Sun to act as a heat shield.

This also implies that the imaging systems of Juice will not take any pictures during this flyby.

https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Operations/Juice_team_resolves_anomaly_on_approach_to_Venus4/n
#ESA#Juice
4/n

Note that the 32-bit counter ticking every 10 ms rolls over in 2^32/100/3600/24 = 497.1 days = ~16 months.

Juice was launched on 14 Apr 2023. The counter was probably reset in Jan 2023; this must be the 2nd rollover.

The #ESA Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) is on its way to orbit and study 3 icy moons of Jupiter: Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa. ETA: Jul 2031.

Check out these threads for some more info -
https://fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/110196855592852020
https://fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/112984391598098464
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_Icy_Moons_Explorer
3/n

From blurry to breathtaking: Comparing three views of the Carina Nebula. La Silla, Hubble, and James Webb show this cosmic landscape in ever greater clarity, illustrating how advances in telescope technology are transforming our vision of the universe and revealing its hidden structures.

#CarinaNebula#Nebulae#Nebula#Astronomy#Science#Space #Astrodon#NASA#ESA#ESO#Hubble#Webb#JWST#LaSilla#SpaceTelescopes#Observatories

Stars are born here. See the Carina Nebula up close and learn the science behind the beauty:

• https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/nasas-webb-reveals-cosmic-cliffs-glittering-landscape-of-star-birth/
• https://science.nasa.gov/asset/hubble/carina-nebula/
• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carina_Nebula

#CarinaNebula#Nebulae#Nebula#Astronomy#Science#Space #Astrodon#NASA#ESA#Hubble#Webb#JWST#SpaceTelescopes#Observatories

From blurry to breathtaking: Comparing three views of the Carina Nebula. La Silla, Hubble, and James Webb show this cosmic landscape in ever greater clarity, illustrating how advances in telescope technology are transforming our vision of the universe and revealing its hidden structures.

#CarinaNebula#Nebulae#Nebula#Astronomy#Science#Space #Astrodon#NASA#ESA#ESO#Hubble#Webb#JWST#LaSilla#SpaceTelescopes#Observatories

💫 Avant de scruter l’Univers, il faut transformer des millions de lignes de code en mesures physiques.

🧑‍💻 Plongée dans les coulisses de la mission Euclid et de son segment sol scientifique, piloté par le CNES

👉 https://cnes.fr/actualites/euclid-coulisses-de-production-de-premiere-livraison-de-donnees

#Euclid#CNES#ESA#Cosmologie#DonnéesSpatiales

💫 Avant de scruter l’Univers, il faut transformer des millions de lignes de code en mesures physiques.

🧑‍💻 Plongée dans les coulisses de la mission Euclid et de son segment sol scientifique, piloté par le CNES

👉 https://cnes.fr/actualites/euclid-coulisses-de-production-de-premiere-livraison-de-donnees

#Euclid#CNES#ESA#Cosmologie#DonnéesSpatiales

Planetary Defense at NASA

In 2016, NASA established the Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) to manage the agency's ongoing mission of finding, tracking, and better understanding asteroids and comets that could pose an impact hazard to Earth. Here you can stay informed about the PDCO, NASA's Near-Earth Object (NEO) Observations Program, and upcoming planetary defense flight missions, including NASA'S NEO Surveyor mission.

Planetary Defenders

NASA’s Planetary Defenders is a gripping documentary that delves into the high-stakes world of asteroid detection and planetary defense by journeying alongside NASA’s dedicated team of scientists, astronomers, and engineers who discover, track, and monitor near-Earth asteroids to safeguard Earth from potential impacts. Available now on NASA+ and other streaming platforms.

How would humanity respond if we discovered an asteroid headed for Earth? NASA’s "Planetary Defenders" is a gripping documentary that delves into the high-stakes world of asteroid detection and planetary defense.

https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/planetary-defense/2025/07/02/nasa-discovers-interstellar-comet-moving-through-solar-system/

#space #asteroids #astrophotography #photography #science #astronomy #tech #security #defense#NASA#ESA

Planetary Defense at NASA

In 2016, NASA established the Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) to manage the agency's ongoing mission of finding, tracking, and better understanding asteroids and comets that could pose an impact hazard to Earth. Here you can stay informed about the PDCO, NASA's Near-Earth Object (NEO) Observations Program, and upcoming planetary defense flight missions, including NASA'S NEO Surveyor mission.

Planetary Defenders

NASA’s Planetary Defenders is a gripping documentary that delves into the high-stakes world of asteroid detection and planetary defense by journeying alongside NASA’s dedicated team of scientists, astronomers, and engineers who discover, track, and monitor near-Earth asteroids to safeguard Earth from potential impacts. Available now on NASA+ and other streaming platforms.

How would humanity respond if we discovered an asteroid headed for Earth? NASA’s "Planetary Defenders" is a gripping documentary that delves into the high-stakes world of asteroid detection and planetary defense.

https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/planetary-defense/2025/07/02/nasa-discovers-interstellar-comet-moving-through-solar-system/

#space #asteroids #astrophotography #photography #science #astronomy #tech #security #defense#NASA#ESA

June 30, 2017

NASA Planetary Defense:
Backyard Asteroid Observer

Backyard astronomer Robert Holmes of Westfield, Illinois, is part of NASA's army of observers scanning the night sky for asteroids.

"We do follow-up observations with NASA's near-Earth observations program. All night long, I'm running big telescopes. One's a 24-inch, a 30-inch, and a 32-inch. And then the 50 inch is my… my biggest telescope [...]."

"[...] We do follow-up observations for the discoveries that are made by the large sky surveys. By looking at these asteroids, and measuring these asteroids, we can determine what their possibilities of actually hitting the Earth in the future are going to be.

NASA provides coordinates of specific objects that they need observations on. I'm gonna punch in the coordinates here, and I'm doing this remotely from inside a control room, not at the telescope. And so, we look these objects up and then use those coordinates to look at a tiny piece of the sky that this object happens to be in. And then we follow those objects, and define and refine orbits for those objects, and reduce the uncertainty of where it's going to go in the near future.

I started off as a volunteer in 2006. It's just blossomed into a full-time opportunity to work for NASA under their grant program, where I'm now doing this every single clear night.

Now we're starting the observing run for 2017 KK3. You don't build a telescope that's this big without having… being passionate about what you do. I'm really driven to be a part of a program that's important and has importance to the future. And we're not talking about next year or the year after, We're talking about asteroids that could potentially hit the Earth 100 years from now. And the work we do today may make a difference 100 years from now."

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/videos/nasa-planetary-defense-backyard-asteroid-observer/

FYI:
https://science.nasa.gov/planetary-defense/

CREDIT
Jet Propulsion Laboratory

#space #asteroids #astrophotography #photography #science #astronomy #nature#NASA#ESA #defense #tech

Asteroid Watch: Keeping an Eye on Near-Earth Objects

Managed for NASA at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) accurately characterizes the orbits of all known near-Earth objects, predicts their close approaches with Earth, and makes comprehensive impact hazard assessments in support of the agency’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Near-Earth objects are asteroids and comets with orbits that bring them to within 120 million miles (195 million kilometers) of the Sun, which means they can circulate through the Earth’s orbital neighborhood. Most near-Earth objects are asteroids that range in size from about 10 feet (a few meters) to nearly 25 miles (40 kilometers) across.

The orbit of each object is computed by finding the elliptical path through space that best fits all the available observations, which often span many orbits over many years or decades. As more observations are made, the accuracy of an object's orbit improves dramatically, and it becomes possible to predict where an object will be years or even decades into the future – and whether it could come close to Earth.

The majority of near-Earth objects have orbits that don’t bring them very close to Earth, and therefore pose no risk of impact, but a small fraction of them – called potentially hazardous asteroids – require more attention. These objects are defined as asteroids that are more than about 460 feet (140 meters) in size with orbits that bring them as close as within 4.6 million miles (7.5 million kilometers) of Earth’s orbit around the Sun. CNEOS continuously monitors all known near-Earth objects to assess any impact risk they may pose. [...]
Read more:
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroid-watch/

#space #earth #science #astronomy #physics #tech #defense#NASA#ESA

The Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) extinction event, formerly known as the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K–T) extinction event, was the mass extinction of three-quarters of the plant and animal species on Earth approximately 66 million years ago. The event caused the extinction of all non-avian dinosaurs. Most other tetrapods weighing more than 25 kg (55 lb) also became extinct, with the exception of some ectothermic species such as sea turtles and crocodilians. It marked the end of the Cretaceous period, and with it the Mesozoic era, while heralding the beginning of the current geological era, the Cenozoic Era.
[...]

As originally proposed in 1980 by a team of scientists led by Luis Alvarez and his son Walter, it is now generally thought that the K–Pg extinction was caused by the impact of a massive asteroid 10 to 15 km (6 to 9 mi) wide, 66 million years ago causing the Chicxulub impact crater, which devastated the global environment, mainly through a lingering impact winter which halted photosynthesis in plants and plankton. The impact hypothesis, also known as the Alvarez hypothesis, was bolstered by the discovery of the 180 km (112 mi) Chicxulub crater in the Gulf of Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula in the early 1990s, which provided conclusive evidence that the K–Pg boundary clay represented debris from an asteroid impact. The fact that the extinctions occurred simultaneously provides strong evidence that they were caused by the asteroid. A 2016 drilling project into the Chicxulub peak ring confirmed that the peak ring comprised granite ejected within minutes from deep in the earth, but contained hardly any gypsum, the usual sulfate-containing sea floor rock in the region: the gypsum would have vaporized and dispersed as an aerosol into the atmosphere, causing longer-term effects on the climate and food chain.
[...]
Read more
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_extinction_event

#space #earth #asteroids #science #history #astronomy #physics #tech #defense#NASA#ESA

TOPIC> About Planetary Defense

2023 June 30

Orbits of Potentially Hazardous Asteroids
* Illustration Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech
https://www.nasa.gov/
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/

Explanation:
Are asteroids dangerous? Some are, but the likelihood of a dangerous asteroid striking the Earth during any given year is low. Because some past mass extinction events have been linked to asteroid impacts, however, humanity has made it a priority to find and catalog those asteroids that may one day affect life on Earth. Pictured here are the orbits of the over 1,000 known Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs). These documented tumbling boulders of rock and ice are over 140 meters across and will pass within 7.5 million kilometers of Earth -- about 20 times the distance to the Moon. Although none of them will strike the Earth in the next 100 years -- not all PHAs have been discovered, and past 100 years, many orbits become hard to predict. Were an asteroid of this size to impact the Earth, it could raise dangerous tsunamis, for example. To investigate Earth-saving strategies, NASA successfully tested the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission in 2022. Of course, rocks and ice bits of much smaller size strike the Earth every day, usually pose no danger, and sometimes create memorable fireball and meteor displays.
https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA17041
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_extinction_event
https://web.archive.org/web/20161210142717/http://nss.org/resources/library/planetarydefense/2000-ReportOfTheTaskForceOnPotentiallyHazardousNearEarthObjects-UK.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_asteroid_close_approaches_to_Earth

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/

#space #earth #astrophotography #photography #science #astronomy #physics #tech #defense#NASA#ESA

Fascinating: ESA is now preparing the Comet Interceptor mission

The spacecraft will be launched in 2029 into a parking orbit, lying in wait for a suitable target – a pristine comet from the Oort Cloud, or, unlikely but highly appealing, an interstellar object.

➡️ https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Comet_Interceptor

#ESA #CometInterceptor #comet #comets#OortCloud#3IATLAS #Astrodon #science #news

Fascinating: ESA is now preparing the Comet Interceptor mission

The spacecraft will be launched in 2029 into a parking orbit, lying in wait for a suitable target – a pristine comet from the Oort Cloud, or, unlikely but highly appealing, an interstellar object.

➡️ https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Comet_Interceptor

#ESA #CometInterceptor #comet #comets#OortCloud#3IATLAS #Astrodon #science #news