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
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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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This video features five frames from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope spanning from 2014 to 2023 of R Aquarii, a symbiotic binary star that lies only roughly 1000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Aquarius. This is a type of binary star system consisting of a white dwarf and a red giant that is surrounded by a large, dynamic nebula.
These frames show the brightness of the central binary changing over time due to strong pulsations in the red giant star. The central structures can also be seen to be spiralling outwards due to their interaction with material previously ejected by the binary.
This time-lapse highlights the value of Hubble’s high resolution optical observations in the changing Universe, known as time-domain astronomy.