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!
Example of dust clouds imaged by ESA’s Mars Express Visual Monitoring Camera and NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s Mars Colour Imager (MARCI) in November 2007 over the Utopia region. Arrows indicate the dust front in each image.
For the MARCI image (top left) and the VMC image at bottom right, a recognisable surface feature is marked on the image, aiding identification of the dust front in both images.
The arced dust front had a length of 730 km on its internal edge and 1950 km on its outer arc, and a width of about 60–130 km. Limb observations by VMC indicated the altitude was about 65 km.