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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This image, acquired by the LASCO C2 coronagraph instrument on the ESA-NASA SOHO spacecraft, was taken 8 January 2002 and shows a widely spreading coronal mass ejection (CME) as it blasts more than a billion tons of matter out into space at millions of kilometers per hour.
This C2 image was turned 90 degrees so that the blast seems to be pointing down. A second image, from the EIT disk imager on a different day was enlarged and superimposed on the C2 image so that it filled the occulting disk for effect.