Understanding our Universe

ESA missions of the past, present and future explore our Solar System and gather data to help us understand the story of our Universe. The Solar Orbiter mission will image the poles of the Sun like never before, while Cheops and the future mission Plato are designed to examine planets around other stars – exoplanets – to see what these other worlds might be like. The large amounts of data sent from space are stored so that scientists from all around the world can keep making discoveries even after the spacecraft have ended their voyages.