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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The second data release from ESA’s Gaia mission contains a high-precision catalogue of the entire sky, covering celestial objects near and far. It includes objects such as asteroids in our Solar System as well as the stellar population of our Milky Way Galaxy and its satellites – globular clusters and nearby galaxies. It also extends to distant quasars that are being used to define a new celestial reference system.
This infographic summarises the cosmic scales covered by this comprehensive dataset, which provides a wide range of topics for the astronomy community.