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 topicVenus’s atmosphere is composed almost entirely of carbon dioxide, with very little water vapour. It has significant amounts of corrosive sulphur-bearing gases and rapidly moving clouds of sulphuric acid droplets. The dense clouds scatter back to space about 80% of the radiation received from the Sun.
Despite only the small amount of solar flux reaching the surface, enough energy is trapped by gases and particles present in the lower atmosphere, to raise the temperature at the surface dramatically, enough to make Venus’s surface the hottest in the Solar System.