Scientists are celebrating as NASA successfully launched its high resolution Sun probe into space on Thursday 11 February.

The Solar Dynamics Observatory will give space scientists the most detailed views ever of the sun to help improve their understanding of the Sun’s disruptive influence on space weather and services such as telecommunications on Earth. The UK, including scientists and engineers from the Science and Technology Facility Council’s (STFC’s) Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL), has provided essential expertise and technology to the mission.

For more information on the mission please follow this link to the full press release

A new executive agency will be created to take the UK's recession-busting space and satellite sector into a new space age.

Full Press Release

A new UK-designed telescope, that can map the sky much faster and deeper than any other infrared telescope, has made its first release of stunning images. VISTA (the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy) is the world’s largest telescope dedicated to mapping the sky in infrared light and will reveal a completely new view of the southern sky. The spectacular images of the Flame Nebula, the centre of our Milky Way Galaxy and the Fornax Galaxy Cluster show that VISTA, based at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile, is working extremely well.

Full Press Release