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
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The left part of this photo shows the globular star cluster 47 Tucanae as imaged by the Very Large Telescope, in Chile. It is one of the densest globular clusters in the Southern hemisphere. The cluster contains one million stars.
The right part is a NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope colour photo of the core of 47 Tucanae. Multiple photos of this region allowed astronomers to track the 'beehive swarm' motion of stars. Precise velocities were obtained for nearly 15 000 stars in this cluster. This image was taken with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys.