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!
The Aral Sea is the key feature in this Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS), which can be observed in the upper left corner. Once the fourth largest lake in the world, the Aral Sea began shrinking in the 1960s when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) diverted the Amu Darya (southern feed of the lake) and Syr Darya (north western feed) rivers to irrigate the cotton crops of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. During the 1980s, little or no water reached the Aral Sea and the lake began to evaporate and shrink, eventually splitting into two sections, the southern Large Aral Sea and the northern Small Aral Sea.