Sentinel-1A
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A tiny space pebble just put a huge dent in an ESA satellite
The European Space Agency's Copernicus Sentinel-1A satellite has new 40cm dent on one of its solar wings -- and it was caused by a tiny millimetre-size piece of space debris. The impact was discovered with the Sentinal-1A reported a slight power reduction last month. Onboard cameras quickly found the micrometeoroid impact, pictured above. Don't worry, the ESA says the satellite is fine, but the impact serves as a reminder: at orbital velocity, tiny objects can cause major damage.
The Big Picture: a laser-beamed satellite image of Berlin
At first glance, the satellite image above may seem like one of the many that have been shared in the past. What you're looking at, though, was delivered in a much more timely manner than the imagery which came before it. For the first time ever, the European Space Agency has used a laser to beam a photograph to Earth -- of Berlin, in this case -- stretching around 36,000 km (or roughly 22,000 miles) across space and delivering it almost in real time. The ESA was able to accomplish this by linking up its Sentinel-1 and Alphasat satellites, both of which are equipped with a laser communications system that makes it possible to deliver data at super high speeds.
