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 topicRelief map of the Antarctic ice sheet derived from ERS-1 data. Lake Vostok shows up as an unusually smooth area of ice (highlighted). The main surface features such as ice divides, domes, ice stream outflow and drainage basins are well defined. Over 20 million height estimates were used to generate a 10 km Digital Elevation Model of the ice sheet which is accurate to better than 1 m for slopes less than 0.5 degrees.
South of the latitudinal limit of the satellite (81.5degrees) a terrestrially derived dataset was used with a substantial reduction in both the accuracy and short wavelength detail (as can be seen in the diagram).