PIX4591367: Constellations of the Great Bear and Little Bear - Constellations of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor - On the right, the large trolley, asterism of the Great Bear; on the left, the small trolley, asterism of the Little Bear that houses the polar star, the star that currently indicates the position of the northern Celestial pole, at the end of the handle of the pan / Bridgeman Images
PIX4604567: European launchers - Illustration - European launch vehicles family in 2009 - Illustration - Artist's view of the various fusees used by the European Space Agency and launches from the Guyanese Space Centre. From left to right, the Vega launcher, Soyuz - ST, Ariane 5 ES ATV and Ariane 5 ECA. Artist view of the family of launchers to be operated on behalf of ESA from the Guiana Space Center, Europe's Spaceport, in Kourou, English Guiana. From left to right: Vega, ESA's new small launcher, is designed to loft single or multiple payloads to orbits up to 1,500 km in altitude. Its reference payload capability is about 1,500 kg to a circular 500 - km - high Sun - synchronous orbit but it can also loft satellites from 300 kg to more than 2 metric tons, as well as piggyback microsatellites of less than 100 kg each. Soyuz - ST, the improved version of Russia's Soyuz workhorse launcher with a new digital avionics and a wider, Ariane 4 - type payload fairing. A new launch pad is being built in the CSG for Soyuz vehicles. Ariane 5 ES, another version of the Ariane 5E featuring a restartable version of Ariane 5G's storable propellant upper stage. One of its primary payloads is the Autonomous Transfer Vehicle (ATV) for resupply and reboost missions to the International Space Station. Ariane 5 ECA, the most powerful version of the Ariane 5E, an evolution of the generic Ariane 5 launcher with an increased propellant load in its solid booster stages and an improved capacity for the liquid oxygen tank of its cryogenic core stage to feed its new Vulcain 2 main engine. The Ariane 5 ECA was first launched on December 11, 2002. Its payload capacity to geostationary transfer orbit reaches 10 metric tons / Bridgeman Images
PIX4605506: E.DEORBIT: a satellite to clean up space - E.Deorbit grabbing debris - Artist view of the satellite e.deorbit (right) catching a satellite with a net to take it to consume in the Earth's atmosphere. e.Deorbit is a European mission project that if approved in 2019 will start in 2024. This satellite will be the first to clean up space debris. He would recapture the larger objects with his articulated arm or a net, before discharging them into the atmosphere, or they would be destroyed. ESA's proposed e.Deorbit mission, shown right, using a net to catch a derelict satellite - the baseline capture method for what would be the world's first active space debris removal mission, in 2024. The mission would first rendezvous with a large, drifting ESA satellite, then capture and secure it safely ahead of steering the combination down for a controlled burn-up in the atmosphere. As well as the baselined robot arm, additional capture technologies are being investigated, including a net and harpon. In any case, grappling the derelict satellite would have to be done in a very rapid and precise manner to prevent E.Deorbit and its target rebounding apart. The mission, being developed through ESA's Clean Space initiative - tasked with safeguarding terrestrial and orbital environments - will be proposed for final agreement at ESA's next Council at Ministerial Level, in 2019. It will place European industry at the forefront of the world's active debris removal efforts and multipurpose space tugs / Bridgeman Images
PIX4675717: Ardipithecus ramidus - Reconstitution of Ardipithecus ramidus, a species faint from the order of Primates and probably from the family Hominides. He lived about 4.4 million years ago at the lower Pliocene. Portrait of a Ardipithecus ramidus. This restoration, based on the newly described Ethiopian specimen nicknamed “” Ardi””, illustrates a basal hominid that resides near the common ancestor of apes and humans. It lived about 4.4 million years ago during the early Pliocene / Bridgeman Images
PIX4656578: Very Large Array Radio Observatory - New Mexico - USA - Very Large Array - Radio observatory in New Mexico - Radio Observatory consists of 27 antennas of 25m diameter. Very Large Array - Radio observatory in New Mexico The Very Large Array, one of the world's premier astronomical radio observatories, consists of 27 radio antennas in a Y - shaped configuration. Each antenna is 25 meters (82 feet) in diameter / Bridgeman Images
PIX4651737: Arecibo Message - Arecibo Message: Arecibo Message is a radio message that was sent to space on November 16, 1974 towards the globular cluster M13, 25 000 light-years from Earth - When this binary message is divided into 73 groups of 23 characters it forms this drawing that includes the numbers from one to ten, the atomic numbers of the hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and phosphorus, DNA structure, a 1.76m man, Earth's population, our solar system, and a representation of the Arecibo radiotelescope - Arecibo message is a radio message that was sent into space, at the globular star cluster M13 on november 16 1974. This binary message describes numbers, atomic numbers, DNA, man dimension, our solar system and the Arecibo radiotelescope / Bridgeman Images
PIX4636579: Centre of the Milky Way Central Region - Center of the Milky Way: Central part of the lactee route seen in New Zealand. Planet Saturn is the bright white dot towards the center of the image (near the nebula of the pipe). The central part of our Milky Way photographed from New Zealand. Lots of emission and obscure nebulae are visible in the image. Planet Saturn in the bright white “” star”” close to the center of the image. / Bridgeman Images