Spain, June 26 -- The European Space Agency (ESA) has awarded a contract to Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture between Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%), to perform the mission consolidation study of the SIRIUS mission (Space Based Infra-Red Imager for Urban Sustainability), in the frame of the Scout missions, part of ESA's Earth Observation FutureEO programme. The SIRIUS mission aims to observe European cities from space using thermal infrared (TIR) data products, which allow the measurement of the temperature of objects from a distance. The objective is to understand how Urban Heat Islands modify the local climate. Urban Heat Islands are areas in cities where higher temperatures are recorded than in the surrounding rural areas, as a resul...