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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While looking at the galaxy cluster Abell 2667, astronomers found an odd-looking spiral galaxy (shown here in the upper left hand corner of the image) that ploughs through the cluster after being accelerated to at least 3.5 million km/h by the enormous combined gravity of the cluster’s dark matter, hot gas and hundreds of galaxies.
The Hubble image was taken by Hubble’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 in October 2001 and is a composite of three observations through a blue filter, a green filter, and a near-infrared filter. ESO’s Very Large Telescope and the twin Keck Telescopes were used for optical spectroscopy and near-infrared photometry, which helped determine the age of the star-forming region. NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and Chandra X-Ray Observatory were used jointly to confirm that the activity in the 'Comet Galaxy' was due to vigorous star-formation and not a super-massive black hole.