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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On 2 March 2022, a solar flare exploded from the Sun. It was rated as M-class, the fourth highest out of five categories for solar flare intensity. This sequence of images shows the flare as captured by the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) on the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft. The images were taken at a wavelength of 17 nanometers, which is in the extreme ultraviolet region of the electromagnetic spectrum. They reveal the upper atmosphere of the Sun, the corona, where the temperature is around 1 million degrees. The flare itself is the unmistakable white patch that develops and expands rapidly in the final seconds of the video.