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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Animation showing the behaviour of water-ice observed in the Imhotep region of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko between 1 August 2014 and 10 February 2015 by Rosetta’s VIRTIS instrument, when the comet-Sun separation decreased from 542 million km to 352 million km...
The blue regions indicate the presence of ice in the uppermost surface layer; red shows no ice; and grey indicates portions of the comet that were in shadow.
The animation shows the ice abundance at each time during the comet's 12.4 hour day, such that each data point represents the average, for a particular hour of the comet day, over the entire time period August-February.