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 topicThis ESA TV Exchanges feed is transmitted by teh European Commmission's ""Europe by Satellite"" (EBS) service. A team from French and German research institutes and ESO at the paranal observatory is celebration ""First Light"" for the NAOS-CONICA Adaptive Optics facility, another important milestone for the Very Large Telescope (VLT) project.
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Images of stars and galaxies that are 100 times sharper than what can normally be made from Earth - this is what scientists at ESA, Europe's organisation for astronomy, can look forward to thanks to the development of a unique camera for the Very Large Telescope at the Paranal Observatory.
The Very Large Telescope - of for short the VLT - is the word's most advanced ground-based astronomical telescope. For the last couple of years, the VLT has produced spectacular scientific results. Still, the performance of the VLT, as that of any ground-based telescope, is limited by the ever-changing conditions of the terrestrial atmosphere, and the resulting degradations of the image sharpness.
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Placed in orbit, outside the denser part of the atmosphere, the ESA/NASA Hubble Space Telescope, though relatively small enjoys a considerable advantage and has provided the world with crystal-clear images of stars and glaxies.
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For a long time, astronomers at the ground based facilities have dre