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!
This microscope image taken at 400 times magnification shows the individual cells that make up the root of an Arabidopsis thaliana plant. The cells responsible for sensing gravity (statoliths) react to changes moving inside the root.
Scientists used a high-resolution microscope to monitor up to eight plants each flight. The device was equipped with lasers and a spinning disc that scanned each root in great detail.
The images captured show the early reactions of one of the hormone auxin carriers, a protein that has a crucial role in coordinating many growth and behavioural processes in a plant’s life cycle. This hormone is very important for gravity perception and regulates the asymmetric growth between the upper and low side of the root.
The team, involving five universities across Europe, repeated the experiment during the first partial gravity international space life sciences parabolic flight campaign held in Bordeaux, France, in June 2018.