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 topicThank you for liking
You have already liked this page, you can only like it once!
The highly-energetic jet seen in this XMM-Newton X-ray view is believed to be emanate from a super massive black hole in the centre of the galaxy, over a million times the mass of the Sun. With the X-ray observations only one jet is seen clearly in the images, compared to the two jets seen in the Herschel observations. This is due to a line of sight effect, whereby the brightness of a jet in X-rays coming towards the observer position is significantly greater than that of one moving away from the observer.