Over the past 18 months, ESA and its Member States have gathered in a series of space exploration workshops culminating in a discussion in the ESA Council held in Paris on 13 June 2018.

The Council discussed Europe’s ambition to play a leading role in the global exploration of space based on its European Exploration Envelope Programme, (known as E3P) that was created by ESA’s ministers when they met in December 2016 in Lucerne, Switzerland.

Plants are quicker to react and more sensitive than you might think – they can detect light changes in a fraction of a second and can bend towards light sources within minutes – and they respond equally fast to gravity. For the first time last week, European scientists filmed roots growing in real-time on a plane that recreates different gravity levels.

ESA-astronaut Alexander Gerst is deze middag veilig gearriveerd bij het internationale ruimtestation ISS, samen met NASA-astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor en Roskosmos-commandant Sergei Prokopyev. Daarmee is Alexanders Horizons-missie officieel van start gegaan.

ESA's Gaia-missie heeft de meest uitgebreide sterrencatalogus aller tijden voorgebracht, inclusief zeer precieze metingen van 1,7 miljard sterren. De kaart onthult details van de Melkweg die tot voor kort verborgen bleven.