The European Space Agency’s Plato spacecraft has safely arrived at ESTEC, ESA’s technical heart in the Netherlands. There, engineers will complete the spacecraft by connecting its solar panels and sunshield, and carry out a series of critical tests to confirm that Plato is fit for launch and ready for its planet-hunting mission in space.

As atmospheric observations of exoplanets become increasingly precise, it is more important than ever to correctly account for the effect of starspots on host stars. An ideal opportunity to study starspots arises when a transiting planet passes directly across them—a phenomenon known as a spot-crossing transit. An international research team led by scientists at the Astrobiology Center (Tokyo, Japan) has combined ground-based observations to reveal the detailed properties of the starspots and the orbital geometry of the planetary system TOI-3884.

A European consortium, which includes the Space Robotics Laboratory at the University of Malaga, has designed an innovative lava tunnel exploration mission concept. It comprises a team of three heterogeneous robots that collaborate autonomously to explore and map these extreme environments efficiently, and they are being tested in caves of Lanzarote (Spain) with a view to the Moon.

A professor from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, is part of the scientific team that has identified a potential sign of early life on Mars.