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
Curious comet’s rare close approach
01/02/2023
Deep fractures and water-carved valleys
31/01/2023
Mars displays fascinating geology everywhere you look – and nowhere is this more true than in the fractured, wrinkled ground seen in this image from ESA’s Mars Express.
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A spiral amongst thousands
31/01/2023
A crowded field of galaxies throngs this Picture of the Month from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, along with bright stars crowned with Webb’s signature six-pointed diffraction spikes.
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Webb unveils dark side of pre-stellar ice chemistry
23/01/2023
The discovery of diverse ices in the darkest, coldest regions of a molecular cloud measured to date has been announced by an international team of astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. This result allows astronomers to examine the simple icy molecules that will be incorporated into future exoplanets, while opening a new window on the origin of more complex molecules that are the first step in the creation of the building blocks of life.
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Galileo tribute unveiled as Juice says ‘Farewell, Europe’
20/01/2023
A commemorative plaque celebrating Galileo’s discovery of Jupiter’s moons has been unveiled on ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, Juice. The spacecraft has just completed its final tests before departing Toulouse, France, for Europe’s Spaceport to count down to an April launch.
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XMM-Newton spies black holes eating the same stars again and again
12/01/2023
Two teams of astronomers using ESA’s XMM-Newton space telescope have observed repeated outbursts of light from inactive black holes that partially destroy stars again and again. This discovery is unexpected, since outbursts of black holes usually appear only once when a black hole consumes a star.
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A wreath of star formation
21/12/2022
Webb's picture of the month December is dominated by NGC 7469, a luminous, face-on spiral galaxy approximately 90 000 light-years in diameter that lies roughly 220 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Pegasus.
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Webb glimpses field of extragalactic PEARLS, studded with galactic diamonds
15/12/2022
The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has captured one of the first medium-deep wide-field images of the cosmos, featuring a region of the sky known as the North Ecliptic Pole.
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Pillars of Creation (NIRCam and MIRI composite image)
01/12/2022
By combining images of the iconic Pillars of Creation from two cameras aboard the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, the Universe has been framed in its infrared glory.
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Webb draws back curtain on Universe’s early galaxies
17/11/2022
The powerful NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has found an unexpectedly rich ‘undiscovered country’ of early galaxies that has been largely hidden until now.
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Solar snake spotted slithering across Sun’s surface
14/11/2022
Solar Orbiter has spotted a ‘tube’ of cooler atmospheric gases snaking its way through the Sun’s magnetic field.
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Euclid completes thermal vacuum testing
10/11/2022
At the Thales Alenia Space test facility in Cannes, France, the massive door of the thermal vacuum chamber was opened after a month of rigorous testing of ESA’s Euclid mission to explore the dark Universe.
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Solar Orbiter’s unprecedented view of the quiet corona
27/10/2022
The ESA-led Solar Orbiter mission has experienced its second close encounter with the Sun.
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Proba-2 sees two partial eclipses
26/10/2022
ESA’s Proba-2 captured two partial solar eclipses on 25 October 2022.
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Zoom into Webb’s view of the Pillars of Creation
19/10/2022
The Pillars of Creation are set off in a kaleidoscope of colour in the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope’s near-infrared-light view.
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