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 image series is an artist's concept of a rare explosion on a neutron star, which is the dead core of a massive star.
The neutron star's strong gravity pulls gas from a nearby companion star. The gas forms a disk as it flows on to the neutron star, like water pouring down a drain (red area). Since a neutron star has about the mass of the Sun compressed into a sphere only about 16 km across, it is incredibly dense. This gives the star tremendous gravity, about 300 000 times greater than Earth's surface gravity, which compresses the gas as it builds up on the surface of the neutron star.
Eventually, pressure and heat in the gas on the surface becomes so high that the gas detonates in a tremendous nuclear explosion. The explosion distorts and illuminates the gas disk.