EUROPEANSPACEAGENCY

Uruguay's President Jose Mujica says he has been offered $1m for his vintage Volkswagen Beetle. Mr Mujica, once dubbed "the poorest president in the world" because of his modest lifestyle, said the offer had come from an Arab sheikh. Ben Bland reports.

Ukraine says Russian strikes have hit the city of northern city of Chernihiv. People had been attending church to celebrate a religious holiday when the strike happened. Some 117 people were injured in the attack, according to the city's acting mayor, with a six-year-old boy among those killed. Moscow is yet to comment on the alleged strike.

111 people are confirmed to have died with another thousand still missing after last week's wildfire on the Hawaiian island of Maui. Officials are still combing through the former Hawaiian capital of Lahaina after it was decimated by wildfire. Among the homes and businesses destroyed by the fires was Fleetwood's, the music venue and restaurant owned by musician Mick Fleetwood.

At least 1,400 people have starved to death in Ethiopia's northern Tigray since food aid was suspended because it was being stolen, an official has said. The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) and the US's leading aid agency halted food aid to Tigray about four months ago. A subsequent investigation by Tigrayan authorities found that almost 500 people were involved in the theft, the official told the BBC. Tigray was hit by a brutal conflict in 2020, causing famine-like conditions.

Many assume that how we age comes down to genetics, but environmental factors play a major role. Professor Rose Anne Kenny explains the science behind living a longer, healthier life.

Property giant Evergrande has filed for bankruptcy protection in the US as the real estate crisis in China deepens. It will allow the heavily-indebted company to protect its assets in the US as it works on a multi-billion dollar deal with creditors. Evergrande defaulted on its huge debts in 2021, which sent shockwaves through global financial markets. The group's real estate unit has more than 1,300 projects in more than 280 Chinese cities, according to its website.

A British nurse, Lucy Letby, has been found guilty of murdering seven babies at a hospital neonatal unit, making her the UK's most prolific child serial killer of modern times. The 33-year-old was also convicted of trying to kill six other infants at the Countess of Chester Hospital in England between June 2015 and June 2016. Letby injected babies with air, force fed others milk and poisoned two of the infants with insulin. The nurse continued to work at the neo-natal unit despite repeated concerns reported to managers by senior doctors at the hospital. The UK government has announced a public inquiry into the deaths. Reeta Chakrabarti presents BBC News at Ten reporting by Judith Moritz and Michael Buchanan.

Officials in Georgia are investigating threats made to jurors who voted to indict former US President Donald Trump over alleged efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the State. Mr Trump has denied all charges against him. It is the fourth criminal case brought against him in as many months.

A state of emergency has been declared in Canada's western British Columbia province, as a fast-moving wildfire threatens to destroy more homes in the area around the city of West Kelowna. Premier David Eby warned that "the situation has evolved rapidly and we are in for an extremely challenging situation in the days ahead". Some 4,800 people are now under evacuation orders. Meanwhile, at least 111 people have been declared dead and more than 1,000 remain missing in Maui, Hawaii, after a fatal wildfire tore across the island.

California is bracing for its first tropical storm in almost 80 years as Storm Hilary heads towards the US. The Category 4 storm has already brought rain across parts of Mexico as it churns off the Pacific coast. The system could make landfall in California on Saturday, with warnings of "catastrophic and life-threatening flooding". Meanwhile, Canada continues to evacuate parts of British Columbia and its North Western Territories due to wildfires and Hawaii continues to recover from a deadly wildfire on Maui.

How does an astronaut return to Earth from the International Space Station? What does it feel like to re-enter the atmosphere? How does the Soyuz capsule function? Watch and find out. This video is based on an actual lesson delivered to the ESA astronaut class of 2009 (also known as the #Shenanigans09) during their ESA Basic Training. It features interviews with astronauts who have flown on the Soyuz and dramatic footage of actual landings. Produced by the ESA Human Spaceflight and Operations (HSO) Astronaut Training Division, Cologne, Germany, in collaboration with the HSO Strategic Planning and Outreach Office, Noordwijk, The Netherlands, with special support from Roskosmos.

ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti is currently living on board the International Space Station for her long duration mission Futura. Food is an important item in space, also on the psychological side; that's why astronauts are allowed a certain quantity of the so-called "bonus food" of their choice that reminds them of their home cooking tastes. We asked Samantha to show us how she manages to cook one of her bonus food recipes in microgravity: whole red rice with peas and chicken turmeric.

Capturing the excitement of three highlights of European manned spaceflight in 2007 and 2008, these clips feature Paolo Nespoli's STS-120 flight, the Columbus laboratory, and finally the ATV Jules Verne, Europe's first space ferry.

During Artemis I the European Service Module (ESM) surpassed expectations. Now, as we set our sights on Artemis II, the European Service Module is ready to once again serve as Orion’s primary power and propulsion component and keep the spacecraft at the right temperature and on course. And this time, with real astronauts on board. ESM-2 stands as a testament to ESA's contributions to NASA's Orion spacecraft and the Artemis programme, ensuring the crew will have the essentials – from electricity to temperature control – in the vastness of space. Next up, ESM-2 will be connected with the crew module to create the Artemis II vehicle. It will then be thoroughly tested before launch scheduled for next year. ESA is committed to send astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit and ultimately to the surface of the Moon and beyond. ESM is a key contribution to this joint international endeavour. This video features interviews with: - Philippe Berthe, ESA’s European Service Module Project Coordination manager - Kai Bergemann, Airbus deputy programme manager for Orion and the European Service Module - Jeremy Hansen, Canadian Space Agency Artemis II astronaut - Debbie Korth, NASA deputy programme manager for Orion

The 117th and final launch of Europe’s Ariane 5 rocket capped a series which began in 1996. Commercial, institutional and scientific payloads included such iconic missions as Rosetta, the James Webb Space Telescope and Juice. Seen here is the launch campaign for VA261 on 5 July 2023, to close the Ariane 5 book; onboard were German aerospace agency DLR’s Heinrich Hertz experimental communications satellite and French communications satellite Syracuse 4b. Credits: ESA-Stephane Corvaja/Zetapress-Manuel Pedoussaut

This timelapse video was made from images taken by ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst orbiting Earth on the International Space Station. The video is offered in Ultra High Definition, the highest available to consumers. Be sure to change the settings in YouTube if your computer or television can handle it for the full effect. The montage is made from a long sequence of still photographs taken at a resolution of 4256 x 2832 pixels at a rate of one every second. The high resolution allowed the ESA production team to create a 3840 x 2160 pixel movie, also known as Ultra HD or 4K. Playing these sequences at 25 frames per second, the film runs 25 times faster than it looks for the astronauts in space. The artistic effects of the light trails from stars and cities at night are created by superimposing the individual images and fading them out slowly. Alexander Gerst is a member of the International Space Station Expedition 40 crew. He is spending five and a half months living and working on the ISS for his Blue Dot mission.

The summer fire season is well under way in Europe – countries all around the Mediterranean are experiencing record temperatures coupled with huge wildfires that have led to mass evacuations. In this enthralling new ESA documentary, explore how people on the frontline are using space to better monitor and fight the flames. Follow the incredible stories of the firefighters who dealt with unprecedented fires in Gironde, France, and the forest officers using satellite data to plan for the forests’ recovery. Journey into the heart of Earth's elemental might and discover how space is changing the game for monitoring volcanic eruptions too – including one of the world’s most studied volcano, Mount Etna. FIRE is the first episode of ESA’s new series centred around the elements and showcases how Earth observation has become crucial to those fighting climate change on the ground.

A psychologist and body image expert help people to love their bodies again by going naked in sunny Greece. #NakedBeach #Channel4 #All4

In July 2023 local time, the last Ariane 5 blasted off from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. Relive the moment from up close in this 360° video showing the liftoff and Ariane 5 soaring to orbit. The audio comes from the camera itself that was clamped to a steel cable on a northern ramp surrounding the Ariane 5 flame trench – about 50 m from the ZL3 launchpad. Despite being so close to the launch pad, the camera was only protected against humidity and rain. A solar panel provided extra power to the camera as it had to record for a long time to capture the liftoff as no people are allowed so close to near the launchpad during the countdown and blastoff. Europe’s Ariane 5 rocket completed its final flight, placing two payloads – the German aerospace agency DLR’s Heinrich Hertz experimental communications satellite and the French communications satellite Syracuse 4b – into their planned geostationary transfer orbits. Total payload mass at liftoff was about 7700 kg – 7000 kg for the two satellites, and the rest for payload adapters and carrying structures. The development of the Ariane series of launch vehicles is an expression of Europe’s position, dating to the 1960s, that participation in the new space age demanded an independent launch capability. Several European countries thus joined forces to develop a launch vehicle. This project, called Europa, was ultimately unsuccessful but in 1975 the European Launcher Development Organisation created to oversee it was merged with the European Space Research Organisation to create ESA, which initiated the Ariane programme. That spirit of co-operation ultimately delivered Ariane 5 and the smaller Vega series of launch vehicles. ESA continues this work with its Member States and industrial partners to meet new market realities with Ariane 6, the newest launch vehicle in the Ariane family. Credits: ESA-Manuel Pedoussaut

ESA’s Euclid mission will create a 3D map of the Universe that scientists will use to measure the properties of dark energy and dark matter and uncover the nature of these mysterious components. The map will contain a vast amount of data, it will cover more than a third of the sky and its third dimension will represent time spanning 10 billion years of cosmic history. But dealing with the huge and detailed set of novel data that Euclid observations will produce is not an easy task. To prepare for this, scientists in the Euclid Consortium have developed one of the most accurate and comprehensive computer simulations of the large-scale structure of the Universe ever produced. They named this the Euclid Flagship simulation. Running on large banks of advanced processors, computer simulations provide a unique laboratory to model the formation and evolution of large-scale structures in the Universe, such as galaxies, galaxy clusters, and the filamentary cosmic web they form. These state-of-the-art computational techniques allow astrophysicists to trace the motion and behavior of an extremely large number of dark-matter particles over cosmological volumes under the influence of their own gravitational pull. They replicate how and where galaxies form and grow, and are used to predict their distribution across the celestial sphere. Explore the Euclid Flagship simulation in this video and get a sneak preview of the structure of the dark Universe, as we currently model it. New insights will be brought to you by the Euclid mission in the coming years. Credits: ESA/Euclid Consortium/Cacao Cinema The authors kindly acknowledge the use of the Splotch package: http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/~kdola... We are Europe's gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe's space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. Check out https://www.esa.int/ to get up to speed on everything space related. Copyright information about our videos is available here: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Te...