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 composite provides one of the most striking examples of a carbon-dioxide-ice (CO2) cloud occurring in the mesosphere of Mars, imaged at different wavelengths. This was one of the first detections of a CO2-ice cloud by the OMEGA instrument on board ESA’s Mars Express, and one of the first images ever to be identified as of CO2-ice cloud. Here, the cloud stretches over the Terra Meridiani region, and covers an area more than 200 km wide.
The image also includes the spectrum obtained by OMEGA and showing that CO2-ice is the actual composition of the cloud.