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 figure shows a three-dimensional cut-away view of Earth'
s magnetosphere. The curly features sketched on the boundary layer are the Kelvin-Helmholtz vortices discovered by Cluster. They originate where two adjacent flows travel with different speed. In this case, one of the flows is the heated gas inside the boundary layer of the magnetosphere, the other the solar wind just outside it. The arrows show the direction of the magnetic field, in red that associated with the solar wind and in green the one inside Earth’s magnetosphere. The white dashed arrow shows the trajectory followed by Cluster.