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 remarkable image, showing the Sun against the constellation of Sagittarius in December 1996, comes from SOHO's visible-light LASCO coronagraph. It masks the intense rays from the Sun's surface in order to reveal the much fainter flow of the corona. Operated with its widest field of view, in its C3 instrument, LASCO's unprecedented sensitivity enables it to see the thin ionised gas of the solar wind out to the edges of the picture, 22 million kilometres from the Sun's surface. A doomed comet, previously unknown, appeared on 22 December. On 23 December it disappeared behind the occulting mask of the coronagraph; it failed to reappear on the far side of the Sun. Whether or not its trajectory took it directly towards the visible surface, the comet must have evaporated in Sun's atmosphere. It was one of a family of comets known as sungrazers, believed to be remnants of a large comet that broke up perhaps 900 years ago. The image is part of an animated sequence showing the Sun during Christmas 1996. [Image Date: 23-12-96] [97.02.002-001]