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 topicComparing the spatial resolution of GOME and SCIAMACHY. The two images show mean tropospheric nitrogen dioxide (NO2) vertical column density (VCD) for August 2002, as resolved by the two sensors. SCIAMACHY has superior resolution, with a typical pixel size of 60 x 30 km compared to an elongated 320 x 40 km for GOME. The result is that individual city sources can be seen. For SCIAMACHY all available raw data for August 2002 are used. For GOME only pixels with corresponding SCIAMACHY measurements are shown. The units measured are 1015 molecules/cm-2. Images from the University of Bremen.