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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This artist’s impression depicts a region of an exploding blue supergiant. These stars are quite rare in the relatively nearby Universe, but are thought to have been very common in the early Universe, with almost all of the first stars having evolved into them over the course of their short lives.
Astronomers used a number of space- and ground-based observatories, including ESA's XMM-Newton to study the gamma-ray burst GRB130925A – a flash of very energetic radiation streaming from a blue supergiant in a galaxy 5.6 billion light years from Earth. They found evidence that this star contained very little in the way of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. The same was true for the first stars to form in the Universe, making GRB130925A a remarkable analogue for similar explosions that occurred just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang.
The illustration shows a hot cocoon of gas (shown in red) surrounding a relativistic jet emerging from the blue supergiant.