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Arianespace and the European Space Agency (ESA) announced at the beginning of January the signature of a launch services contract for the Euclid satellite. The mission, supported by Romania among other countries, has a timeframe for liftoff starting in mid-2022 from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.

At the end of December 2019, the names of over 110 exoplanets and their host stars selected in the IAU100 NameExoWorlds campaign were announced at a press conference in Paris (France). Within the framework of the International Astronomical Union’s 100th anniversary celebrations in 2019, 112 countries, including Romania, organised national campaigns that triggered the direct participation of over 780 000 people worldwide, who proposed and selected names for each exoplanet and its host star. 

The International Astronautical Federation has announced a call for your participants to the Next Generation Plenary at the International Astronautical Congress, set to take place 12-16 October, 2020 in Dubai. The deadline for the first round of applications is 24 January 2020.

Ferocious bushfires have been sweeping across Australia since September, fuelled by record-breaking temperatures, drought and wind. The country has always experienced fires, but this season has been horrific. A staggering 10 million hectares of land have been burned, at least 24 people have been killed and it has been reported that almost half a billion animals have perished.

On 3 December 2019, the International Space Station (ISS) captured this picture of Bucharest by night, as it passed over Eastern Europe. A larger version of the image can be found at the end of the article.