Live coverage: Europe’s Mars mission launches

Portrayed in this image from ESA’s Planck satellite are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, dwarf galaxies that are among the nearest companions of our Milky Way. The Large Magellanic Cloud, about 160,000 light-years away, is the large red and orange blob close to the centre of the image. The Small Magellanic Cloud lies some 200,000 light-years from us.

The United Arab Emirates “Hope” probe is now making repeated close flybys of the martian moon Deimos – and snapping spectacular pictures.

A new study indicates Mars had more than enough sub-surface hydrogen, from the breakdown of water due to radioactive decay, to support a global microbial biosphere that could have persisted for hundreds of millions of years.