European Association for Astronomy Education

Source: ESA

The SCIAMACHY sensor on ESA’s Envisat satellite has provided scientists with invaluable data on our planet, allowing them to map global air pollution and the distribution of greenhouse gases. (read more)

Source : ESA News

While ESA’s Proba-2 keeps its main instruments trained on the Sun, it is also looking back to its homeworld. This wide-angle view of Earth comes from an experimental camera that is smaller than an espresso cup. (read more)

Source: ESA Technology Transfer Programme

Entrepreneurs have the chance to win prizes totalling a million euros in this year’s European Satellite Navigation Competition. ESA will award a special prize of ¤10 000 for the best idea and support the business start up at one of its four incubation centres. (read more)

Source: Cambridge University

Artist’s impression about dinossaur extinction.
Credit: Nicolle Rager Fuller, www.sayo-art.com, copyright 2009.

The Cretaceous–Tertiary mass extinction, which wiped out the dinosaurs and more than half of species on Earth, was caused by an asteroid colliding with Earth and not massive volcanic activity, according to a comprehensive new review of all the evidence.

A panel of 41 international experts, including UK researchers from Cambridge, Imperial College London, University College London and the Open University reviewed 20 years’ worth of research to determine the cause of the Cretaceous-Tertiary (KT) extinction, which happened around 65 million years ago.

The review, published in this week’s Science, shows the extinction was caused by a massive asteroid around 15 kilometres wide slamming into Earth at Chicxulub, Mexico. (read more)