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 topicThis animation consists of a sequence of two images taken by the IBIS/ISGRI instrument on board ESA’s Integral gamma-ray observatory, and it shows the galactic centre region in hard X-rays.
In one frame, the bright X-ray nova IGR J17497-2821 (indicated by the arrow) is seen during its discovery outburst, while the other frame is the same field as observed prior to the nova event. The other variable sources are well known X-ray binaries.
The two separate images can be downloaded here:
image 1, image 2