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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Astronomer Paolo Tanga of Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur, France, flying through asteroid orbits in a Virtual Reality (VR) visualisation of data from ESA’s Gaia mission during the International Astronomical Union 30th General Assembly in Vienna, Austria.
High-precision measurements of more than 14 000 known asteroids in our Solar System were included in the mission’s second data release. Paolo is leading the Solar System objects group that was responsible for these data in the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium.
The data visualisation is provided by Gaia Sky, a real-time, 3D astronomy visualisation software that was developed in the framework of the Gaia mission at the Astronomisches Rechen-Institut, University of Heidelberg, Germany.