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!
Three different studies during the latest ESA parabolic flight campaign showed how shots of weightlessness wake up the brain, but disorient it, too. Participants volunteered to throw their brains off balance by experiencing microgravity without leaving Earth, onboard the Zero-G plane.
The aircraft, operated by Novespace in Bordeaux, France, offers up to 90 periods of weightlessness, 20 seconds at a time.
Removing the sense of weight for short periods of time has a direct – and varied – impact on cognition and spatial memory. While volunteers got better at multitasking and solving demanding equations, they found it more difficult to navigate in new environments.
Recordings of brain activity and tests to monitor attention and arithmetic skills confirmed that there is a significant increase in performance during short-term exposure to microgravity.