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!
The ROSINA (Rosetta Orbiter Spectrometer for Ion and Neutral Analysis) instrument on board ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft spent two years ‘sniffing’ the environment of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, obtaining unprecedented measurements of the gases found in a comet’s atmosphere. Besides the main component, water vapour, ROSINA detected a wide variety of chemical species, from simple atoms to increasingly complex molecules, including some ingredients that were crucial for the origin of life on Earth. In a humorous take on this ‘cometary zoo’, Kathrin Altwegg, ROSINA principal investigator from University of Bern and an enthusiast of animals, categorised the variety of bizarre ‘creatures’ they found at the comet.
This image was originally published on blogs.esa.int and sci.esa.int following the 29 September 2016 science briefing at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany.