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 topicLittle is known how four billion years ago, life emerged on Earth out of a pre-biotic "soup" featuring complex organic molecules. Saturn's moon Titan is believed to resemble the pre-biotic Earth, because the large distance from the Sun has "deep frozen" its development state similar that of the early Earth. Tholins are a slush of complex organic molecules that instruments on the Huygens probe detected in Titans atmosphere. In a French laboratory experiments are now underway to recreate tholins in a Titan-like gas mixture...to ultimately understand how complex organic molecules--and which ones--might have been present in our own Earth's pre-biotic atmosphere.