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 topicThank you for liking
You have already liked this page, you can only like it once!
Sketch of the relative positions of spacecraft that observed the 12 February coronal mass ejections (CME). ESA’s Solar Orbiter spacecraft was ‘behind’ the Sun from the perspective of Earth; the Earth was about 12 degrees west of Sun-centre as seen from Solar Orbiter. ESA’s Proba-2, which orbits the Earth, and the ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), which is located in orbit around the Lagrange point 1, 1.5 million km in front of the Earth towards the Sun, also viewed the CME. NASA’s STEREO-A (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) also caught a glimpse of the event from its viewpoint away from the direct Sun-Earth line. Together the spacecraft provide valuable, different perspectives on the same event.
Not to scale