The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
Go to topic
This image is a portion of one of the first images obtained with
ESA's Faint Object Camera onboard the Hubble Space Telescope. Even though this test image was taken with the telescope still not yet completely in focus, the dramatic improvement in spatial resolution provided by the Faint Object Camera is immediately apparent. The stellar images display a sharp
core of diameter less than 0.1 arcseconds surrounded by an approximately 8 times larger diffuse "halo".