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 topicThis clip is a so-called ‘running-difference’ movie version of the video obtained by SOHO’s EIT telescope on 6 and 7 January 2008: the differences between single frames were highlighted in order to see more easily the changes on the Sun’s surface observed by SOHO.
The movie shows the two ‘EIT waves’, a kind of solar storm that blasts out from an active region across a portion of the Sun’s surface, generated by the first sunspot of the new solar cycle.