on my webpage! I am an experienced spacecraft analyst at the European Space Operations Centre via Telespazio Germany GmbH. Currently, I am the analyst for the X-ray astronomy mission XMM-Newton, but have worked as an analyst for almost all Earth Explorer spacecrafts previously. In the past I have worked as an astrophysicist studing accreting neutron stars and cosmological neutrino sources. For more details please have a look at the “About me” menu.
ESA Space Science News
Leo P (NIRCam image)
17/01/2025
This image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope shows a portion of the Leo P dwarf galaxy (stars at lower right represented in blue).
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Jetting into space
17/01/2025
Today’s NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Picture of the Week peers into the dusty recesses of the nearest massive star-forming region to Earth, the Orion Nebula.
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Hubble traces hidden history of the Andromeda Galaxy
16/01/2025
The largest photomosaic of the Andromeda galaxy, assembled from NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope observations, unveils hundreds of millions of stars. It took more than 10 years to collect data for this colorful portrait of our neighbouring galaxy and was created from more than 600 snapshots. This stunning, colourful mosaic captures the glow of 200 million stars, and is spread across roughly 2.5 billion pixels.
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Mars plays hide and seek with Wolf Moon
15/01/2025
The first full Moon of the year shines while escorted by a bright, reddish celestial companion.
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The best Milky Way map, by Gaia
15/01/2025
The best Milky Way map, by Gaia (artist impression)
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The best Milky Way animation, by Gaia
15/01/2025
This is a new artist’s animation of our galaxy, the Milky Way, based on data from ESA’s Gaia space telescope.
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Last starlight for ground-breaking Gaia
15/01/2025
The European Space Agency’s Milky Way-mapper Gaia has completed the sky-scanning phase of its mission, racking up more than three trillion observations of about two billion stars and other objects over the last decade to revolutionise the view of our home galaxy and cosmic neighbourhood.
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The best Milky Way map, by Gaia (edge-on)
15/01/2025
The best Milky Way map, by Gaia (artist impression, edge-on)
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XMM-Newton catches giant black hole’s X-ray oscillations
13/01/2025
The European Space Agency's XMM-Newton has detected rapidly fluctuating X-rays coming from the very edge of a supermassive black hole in the heart of a nearby galaxy. The results paint a fascinating picture that defies how we thought matter falls into such black holes, and points to a potential source of gravitational waves that ESA’s future mission, LISA, could see.
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Top three images from BepiColombo's sixth Mercury flyby
09/01/2025
On 8 January 2025, the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission flew past Mercury for the sixth time, successfully completing the final ‘gravity assist manoeuvre’ needed to steer it into orbit around the planet in late 2026. The spacecraft flew just a few hundred kilometres above the planet's north pole. Close-up images expose possibly icy craters whose floors are in permanent shadow, and the vast sunlit northern plains.
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BepiColombo to swing by Mercury for the sixth time
06/01/2025
On 8 January 2025, the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission will fly just 295 km above Mercury's surface, with a closest approach scheduled for 06:59 CET (05:59 UTC). It will use this opportunity to photograph Mercury, make unique measurements of the planet’s environment, and fine-tune science instrument operations before the main mission begins. This sixth and final flyby will reduce the spacecraft’s speed and change its direction, readying it for entering orbit around the tiny planet in late 2026.
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See and hear three years of solar fireworks
03/01/2025
At the start of this new year, we look back at close-up pictures and solar flare data recorded by the ESA-led Solar Orbiter mission over the last three years.
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Cosmic jingles: listen to Euclid’s image of M78
19/12/2024
An ethereal dance of misty clouds of interstellar dust with a myriad of distant stars and galaxies speckled like paint drops over a black canvas.
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Smile's other half arrives | Let’s Smile (action snippet)
12/12/2024
On 9 December 2024, the Smile Platform arrived safely at Amsterdam Schiphol airport and was subsequently transported to ESA's European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, the Netherlands.
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Fly around Ares Vallis on Mars
20/11/2024
Explore the immense power of water as ESA’s Mars Express takes us on a flight over curving channels, streamlined islands and muddled ‘chaotic terrain’ on Mars, soaking up rover landing sites along the way.
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