Welcome

on my webpage! I’m a spacecraft analyst at the European Space Operations Centre via Telespazio Germany GmbH. In particular, I am a member of a large team operating Earth Explorer spacecrafts. 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

The following news are a copy of the ESA space science news, for which I thank ESA for authorization. In order to read the full articles please follow the corresponding links.

20 years of Mars Express: Mars as never seen before

02/06/2023

A new mosaic of Mars marks 20 years since the launch of ESA's Mars Express, and reveals the planet’s colour and composition in spectacular detail.
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Webb peers behind bars

02/06/2023

A delicate tracery of dust and bright star clusters threads across this image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope.
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Webb maps surprisingly large plume jetting from Saturn’s moon Enceladus

30/05/2023

Interaction between moon’s plumes and Saturn’s ring system explored with WebbA water vapour plume from Saturn’s moon Enceladus spanning more than 9600 kilometres — long enough to stretch across the Eurasian continent from Ireland to Japan — has been detected by researchers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. Not only is this the first time such water ejection has been seen over such an expansive distance, but Webb is also giving scientists a direct look, for the first time, at how this emission feeds the water supply for the entire system of Saturn and its rings.
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Research Fellows in space science 2023

24/05/2023

ESA has selected 12 new Fellows to pursue their own independent research in space science in 2023 The Research Fellowships in Space Science represent one of the highlights of the ESA Science programme.
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Webb finds water, and a new mystery, in rare main-belt comet

15/05/2023

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has enabled another long-sought scientific breakthrough, this time for Solar System scientists studying the origins of the water that has made life on Earth possible. Using Webb’s NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) instrument, astronomers have confirmed gas – specifically water vapour – around a comet in the main asteroid belt for the first time, proving that water from the primordial Solar System can be preserved as ice in that region. However, the successful detection of water comes with a new puzzle: unlike other comets, Comet 238P/Read had no detectable carbon dioxide.
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Juice flies Ariane 5: from preparation to liftoff at Europe’s Spaceport

09/05/2023

Timelapse of the integration and launch of Juice.
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Webb looks for Fomalhaut’s asteroid belt and finds much more

08/05/2023

Astronomers used the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope to image the warm dust around a nearby young star, Fomalhaut, in order to study the first asteroid belt ever seen outside of our Solar System in infrared light. But to their surprise, they found that the dusty structures are much more complex than the asteroid and Kuiper dust belts of our Solar System. 
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#CosmicMystery: Win a trip to Euclid mission control

08/05/2023

Help us visualise how much of the Universe we know and don’t know and win a trip to mission control as ESA’s Euclid mission launches into space no earlier than July to unlock the mysteries of the Dark Universe.
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Webb finds water vapour, but from a rocky planet or its star?

01/05/2023

Astronomers used the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope to study a rocky exoplanet known as GJ 486 b.
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Juice’s first taste of science from space

26/04/2023

ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, Juice, has recorded magnetic field data as its 10.
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Webb reveals early-Universe prequel to huge galaxy cluster

24/04/2023

The seven galaxies highlighted in this image from the NASA/ESA/CSA Telescope have been confirmed to be at a distance that astronomers refer to as redshift 7.
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Tiny magnetic episodes may have large consequences on the Sun

17/04/2023

ESA’s Solar Orbiter may have taken another step towards solving the eighty-year-old mystery of why the Sun’s outer atmosphere is so hot.
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Juice post-launch briefing replay

14/04/2023

Watch a replay of the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) post-launch briefing, live from ESA’s European Spacecraft Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany.
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Juice launch broadcast replay

14/04/2023

Watch a replay of the launch broadcast for ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, Juice.
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Science with Euclid

04/04/2023

Discover the top five mysteries ESA’s mission Euclid will help solve.
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