ESA Space Science

Discover the science behind one of nature's most extraordinary phenomena and experience a total solar eclipse with the European Space Agency (ESA), the City of León and the University of León.

The European Space Agency’s terrestrial planet hunter Plato has recently completed a series of key tests inside the Maxwell Test Chamber at ESTEC, demonstrating that its electronic equipment is fit to work in space.

This photo captures the spacecraft standing inside the special chamber. The shielded enclosure features conducting metal walls, floor, and ceiling that form a Faraday cage, screening out all external interference. Its 9 m-high interior is lined floor to ceiling with foam spikes that absorb electrical signals and sounds to mimic the void of space.

Once the chamber was sealed closed, engineers remotely switched on and commanded Plato’s electronic equipment. They ran a series of tests to ensure that the spacecraft’s complex instruments and modules did not interfere with each other or with the communication systems, creating unwanted ‘crosstalk’.

In the extreme vacuum of space, a spacecraft’s electronics can behave differently than they do in a typical test lab on the ground. Without proper testing, this can have unforeseen consequences that could affect the mission’s goals or even damage the equipment.

Thanks to the tests run in the Maxwell Test Chamber, engineers verified that Plato’s many electronic systems can work together in space without interference – in other words, that they are electromagnetically compatible.

With compatibility checked off, Plato has now cleared the last remaining major exam in the series that the spacecraft must undertake to graduate for launch.

The exams started back in January this year with vibration and acoustic tests, followed by a month-long stay inside the Large Space Simulator where Plato aced a demanding set of tests and demonstrated that it is fit to withstand the harsh conditions of space.

Plato will lift off on an Ariane 6. Its launch is planned by Arianespace for March 2027.

[Image description: Photograph of a spacecraft towering at the centre of a large test chamber. The chamber's walls and ceiling are covered with dense rows of blue foam spikes that create a striking geometric pattern extending in all directions around the spacecraft. The right side of the spacecraft is dominated by shiny black, stowed, solar panels. The spacecraft body is partly visible on the left wrapped in reflective gold-coloured insulating foil and partially covered by a translucent protective sheet secured with small pieces of red tape.]

Expedition Sound is a podcast series by the European Space Agency (ESA) in which you’re invited to explore the Universe through your ears. Guided by sonifications – the translation of data into sound – host Zsófi Szalavári travels from our Sun out into the depths of space to uncover what the space telescopes of ESA’s science missions teach us about the Universe.

ESA experts explain the science of eclipses, including visibility and key opportunities for scientific observation.

The European Space Agency’s Mars Express has spotted a swathe of metallic-looking waves filling Mars’s large Kaiser Crater – an ancient and otherworldly dune field sculpted by wind.

In new images from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope to celebrate its fourth science anniversary, a familiar galaxy transforms into something far richer, and far more complex, than ever seen before. Webb’s unprecedented sensitivity across near- and mid-infrared wavelengths cuts through the thick lanes of dust that obscure Centaurus A’s centre in visible light, showing a densely packed tapestry of individual stars and an active, everchanging galaxy. These images mark four years of better-than-anticipated performance and successful science operations for the most powerful space telescope in history.

Millions of stars. Thousands of hidden worlds. One unprecedented view of our galaxy.

Three years since launch, ESA’s Euclid space telescope reveals the Milky Way galaxy’s centre in extraordinary detail: a mosaic of tens of millions of stars captured in just 26 hours.But this is more than an image. It is a map of stellar evolution, from dark clouds where stars are being born to ancient populations packed into the galactic bulge.

And hidden within this dense field of light are planets we cannot see directly.

Through gravitational microlensing, astronomers detect distant worlds by measuring tiny, temporary changes in light as stars pass in front of one another, revealing planets and even their masses through gravity alone.

Euclid, originally built to explore dark matter and dark energy, is now helping open a new window on our own galaxy, and the unseen worlds within it.

What really happens during a solar eclipse? ESA astronaut Pablo Álvarez Fernández separates myth from fact, answering common questions and misconceptions about one of nature's most spectacular phenomena.

ESA is getting ready for three European solar eclipses. Follow this page to keep up to date with our planned activities!

This is the largest high-resolution photo ever made of our Milky Way galaxy’s centre in visible light. It was taken on 23 March 2025 by the European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope. Packed with more than 60 million stars, this image opens the door for scientists to confirm the existence of any exoplanet found in this region and measure its mass using tiny changes in starlight over time. 

The galactic bulge – the central region of our galaxy – is a vast, tightly packed structure filled mainly with old, cooler stars, giving it its characteristic yellow colour. Seen from some 26 000 light-years away, Euclid observes the galaxy’s centre through a complex foreground of material along its line of sight.  

This ultra-wide view towards the bulge reveals not only stars, but also seemingly empty dark regions. The dark patches are not devoid of stars: they mark dense, dust-rich molecular clouds that absorb and scatter light from the bulge behind them. As Euclid looks through two of the Milky Way’s spiral arms, it also encounters regions of active star formation, traced by newly formed, massive blue stars. Their intense ultraviolet radiation ionises surrounding hydrogen gas, producing the faint red glow.  

Learn more.

English

How does Europe study the Sun? Discover the missions revealing the secrets of our closest star, from SOHO and Solar Orbiter to Proba-3, which is creating artificial solar eclipses in space to unlock new insights into the Sun's mysterious corona.

Featuring ESA Reserve Astronaut Sara García Alonso.

ESA is getting ready for three European solar eclipses. Follow this page to keep up to date with our planned activities!

Spanish 

¿Cómo se estudia el Sol desde Europa? Acompaña a Sara García Alonso en un recorrido por las misiones de la ESA que observan nuestra estrella, desde SOHO y Solar Orbiter hasta Proba-3, que está creando eclipses solares artificiales en el espacio para investigar la misteriosa corona solar.

Con Sara García Alonso, astronauta de reserva de la ESA.

La ESA se está preparando para los tres eclipses solares que van a pasar por Europa. ¡Síguenos en esta página y no te pierdas todas las actividades que temenos previstas!