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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On 1 June 2022, the ESA-led Solar Orbiter spacecraft was turned slightly and rolled to one side, so that the Metis instrument could see the part of the Sun’s atmosphere, known as the corona, through which NASA’s Parker Solar Probe was flying. This manoeuvre meant that for the first time, solar physicists recorded both the in-situ behaviour of the magnetised gas known as plasma that constitutes the solar corona, and the large-scale consequences.
These plots show the movement of Parker Solar Probe through the Metis field of view. A real image from Metis is shown. The fuzzy red disc is a result of the coronagraph that blocks the glare of the bright Sun to enable observations of the fainter corona. The black disc is a mask to compress the image size to reduce the amount of unnecessary data downlinked. The cross marks the centre of the Sun, and the small circle around the cross represents the outline of the Sun itself. The Parker Solar Probe icon is not to scale.