European Space Agency

In new images from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope to celebrate its fourth science anniversary, a familiar galaxy transforms into something far richer, and far more complex, than ever seen before. Webb’s unprecedented sensitivity across near- and mid-infrared wavelengths cuts through the thick lanes of dust that obscure Centaurus A’s centre in visible light, showing a densely packed tapestry of individual stars and an active, everchanging galaxy. These images mark four years of bette

An international team of astronomers has used the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope to watch the Jupiter-sized exoplanet WD 1856 b transit its host star, measuring the planet’s mass and temperature and even detecting its atmosphere.They found that the planet is significantly warmer than expected and determined how it most likely reached its very tight orbit around the star, a white dwarf. The results are our first window into the future of planets like Jupiter after the death of the Sun, b

The European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton and NASA’s Chandra X-ray space telescopes have spotted the aftermath of three bright explosions echoing through the outer spiral arms of our galaxy, the Milky Way. By measuring the distance to these echoes, they find the outer arms to be up to 10% further away than we thought.

Video: 00:10:45 Millions of stars. Thousands of hidden worlds. One unprecedented view of our galaxy.Three years since launch, ESA’s Euclid space telescope reveals the Milky Way galaxy’s centre in extraordinary detail: a mosaic of tens of millions of stars captured in just 26 hours.But this is more than an image. It is a map of stellar evolution, from dark clouds where stars are being born to ancient populations packed into the galactic bulge.And hidden within this dense field of light ar

Video: 00:03:39 What really happens during a solar eclipse? ESA astronaut Pablo Álvarez Fernández separates myth from fact, answering common questions and misconceptions about one of nature's most spectacular phenomena.ESA is getting ready for three European solar eclipses. Follow this page to keep up to date with our planned activities!

Image: Smile reaches science orbit

Video: 00:03:00 This is the largest high-resolution photo ever made of our Milky Way galaxy’s centre in visible light. It was taken on 23 March 2025 by the European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope. Packed with more than 60 million stars, this image opens the door for scientists to confirm the existence of any exoplanet found in this region and measure its mass using tiny changes in starlight over time. The galactic bulge – the central region of our galaxy – is a vast, tightly packe

The European Space Agency’s Mars Express has captured part of Mars’s Mamers Valles: a fascinating valley system speckled with brief, tornado-like whirlwinds known as dust devils.

Researchers have confirmed a new class of objects within our Milky Way galaxy: survivors called 'bulge fossil fragments.' Terzan 5 is the prototype of these remnants of our galaxy's early formation. Using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescopes researchers have shown that Terzan 5 is not a globular star cluster as it was once classified. Instead, it is something much odder and rarer. 

On 10–11 June, representatives from European Space Agency (ESA) Member States met in Tenerife to make far-reaching decisions about the future of ESA’s Science Programme. Their decisions to extend current missions and adopt the next ‘fast-class’ mission, Arrakihs, underscores European leadership in, and long-term commitment to, space science.

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Science Programme Committee has adopted the Arrakihs mission. Planned for launch by the end of 2030, Arrakihs will capture the faint light from nearby galaxy haloes. By seeing the unseen, Arrakihs will dig up cosmic history and reveal how galaxies like our own form and evolve.  

Video: 00:02:40 EnglishHow does Europe study the Sun? Discover the missions revealing the secrets of our closest star, from SOHO and Solar Orbiter to Proba-3, which is creating artificial solar eclipses in space to unlock new insights into the Sun's mysterious corona.Featuring ESA Reserve Astronaut Sara García Alonso.ESA is getting ready for three European solar eclipses. Follow this page to keep up to date with our planned activities!Spanish ¿Cómo se estudia el Sol desde Europa? Acompañ

Image: Webb unveils young stars across every stage of formation

Video: 00:03:24 Smile successfully launched from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on 19 May 2026.This timelapse captures the excitement and precision of launch operations as the spacecraft begins its journey to study the connection between the Sun and Earth.Smile (the Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer) is an international space science mission designed to investigate how the solar wind interacts with Earth's magnetosphere. By observing these dynamic processes from spac

Image: Webb's MIRI image of the interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS in three different light wavelengths

Image: Journey to the centre of a galaxy cluster

Using the unprecedented imaging and spectroscopic power of the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, researchers have mapped the motion and composition of gas orbiting a black hole in the centre of Abell2744-QSO1, a tiny galaxy more than 13 billion light-years away. The results suggest that the 50-million-solar-mass black hole predates its host galaxy, possibly forming within the first second of the Big Bang, and must have been immense from the start.

The launch of the 4DSpace-Daedalus mission in Norway is the latest success supported by Prodex, a European Space Agency (ESA) programme which enables highly skilled research institutes to partake in European space science activities and missions.