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 topicThank you for liking
You have already liked this page, you can only like it once!
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is based on three exposures from the WFPC2 camera at the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, obtained in the V-, R- and I-bands, (shown as blue, green and red respectively). It shows the first image of a Dark Matter object - a MACHO (a massive compact object). It is the red object that is indicated with an arrow. This MACHO is a nearby red dwarf star that gravitationally focused light from a blue background star in another galaxy in a so-called microlensing event. Since the event six years ago, the MACHO has moved 0.134 arc seconds on the sky and can now be clearly separated from the blue star in the Hubble image.