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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The 10 million-year-old star TW Hydrae is surrounded by a dense disc of planet-forming materials. Using ESA’s Herschel space observatory, astronomers have been able to ‘weigh’ the star’s disc with ten times higher accuracy than ever before, finding it still has enough mass to spawn 50 Jupiter-mass planets, several million years after most other stars have already given birth.