The most comprehensive map of the universe is created by the European Space Agency. Calculating the precise positions, speeds and trajectory of about 2 billion stars in the sky can be used to replay the movie of its life millions of years ago.
While not a household name like the Hubble Space Telescope or the James Webb Space Telescope, Gaia has changed the way we look at the universe. The most scientific papers have been produced by the telescope.
Four batches of data, witch increasingly precise measurements and new types of information about the ages, mass, brightness and chemical composition of stars have been released by Gaia.
Data sets about asteroids in the solar system have been created by the telescope.
When the telescope runs out of fuel, it will be gone for good. Astronomers will be busy for decades after that because of the vast catalog of data created by the mission.
The next Gaia mission data dump could solve some big mysteries.
The sun is in sync with our planet thanks to the location of the Lagrange Point 2. Shielded by Earth from the sun's glare but also free from the distortion of Earth's atmosphere, the flying-saucer-like spaceship scans the entire sky every two months.
The circular sun shield is attached to a 7.5 foot wide satellite that has two telescopes that sit 106 degrees apart. The telescopes project the light they capture onto a camera which distinguishes the faintest details of the universe. Astronomers can use these telescopes to find out the distances of stars from Gaia as well as their positions and motions on the plane of the sky.
There are blue and red photometers that measure the brightness and color of the observed stars in addition to the two telescopes. Scientists can derive temperatures from these measurements.
There is an instrument on board. The instrument shows how stars absorb light and how fast they move from one place to another.
About 1% of the universe's stars are seen by Gaia. Astronomers can use the data from the mission to reconstruct the entire Milky Way.
Each day, Gaia sends up to 100 gigabytes of data to Earth. The Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium, consisting of over 400 researchers and software engineers scattered over six super-computing centers across Europe, spends years processing, calibrating and validation the data.
Each star is measured on average 75 times every five years, according to one of the researchers of the DPAC team. We have trillions of individual star observations when we begin our work. Each of the nearly two billion stars that we measure contains only five parameters for the position and motion of the stars, as well as additional parameters for brightness and spectrum.
If printed on paper, the mission's final catalogue would be up to 100 km high.
Progress in the chart of the Milky Way was slow prior to the launch of Gaia.
If you are trying to tell the shape of a building while you are inside, it's the same thing. You have to know where the individual stars are in order to understand the shape of the universe. To measure the positions of the stars in three dimensions is very difficult.
According to the European Space Agency, in the early 1990s astronomer knew the accurate positions of only about 8000 stars. Advancing telescope technology allowed them to increase the size of the stellar catalogs, but the effects of the atmosphere restricted their possibilities. The Hipparcos mission launched in the early 1990s. Hipparcos put the number of stars at 100,000, while Gaia put the number of stars at 2 billion.
Floor van Leeuwen, who was the head of the data processing team at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge in the U.K., told E&T magazine that Hipparcos was built on 1980s technology. The satellite had to communicate with the ground station constantly and there was very little memory on the board. The mission was less flexible and the detectors were simpler.
Improvements in digital technology were the main reason for the step change between Hipparcos and Gaia. In the early 2000s, when the mission was developed, the detectors and cameras were state-of- the-art.
Picking its highlights is difficult since the mission has been generating on average five scientific papers a day.
"Only four or five years ago, I was still asked repeatedly by one of the senior professors at Cambridge University, 'What are the proper motions of the Magellanic Clouds?'" van Leeuwen explained in December 2020. Is it possible to measure them yet? I had to admit that we haven't. We know what is happening inside the Clouds with extreme accuracy, but we don't know what's going on outside.
There are two dwarf galaxies on the outskirts of the world's most famous constellation. The data shows that the galaxies were captured by the Milky Way's gravity a few billion years ago and will eventually collide with it.
As the data becomes more precise, the tag of the best Milky Way map will remain with every release. This map is more and more colorful due to the fact that the mission is able to see more distant stars.
The field of archaeology was created by Gaia. Astronomers sift through the data to find patterns in the stars' motions. Since objects in space follow the laws of physics, they can be seen billions of years into the future.
They are trying to piece together the story of the Milky Way's life, finding evidence of ancient collisions through which the galaxy formed into its current form.
Some 10 billion years ago, the emergence of the Milky Way smashed into a smaller galaxy, which was four times smaller than the original one. The halo of thinly dispersed stars surrounding the giant disc of gas and dust in the center of the universe was created by the remnants of this galaxy.
Anthony Brown, an astronomer at the University of the Netherlands, told Space.com that the last significant merger that the Milky Way underwent was the collision with Gaia Enceladus.
Astronomers are able to look into the distant past thanks to the increased precision of the data and the new parameters being released.
The data showed that the galaxy's disk is warped rather than flat and wobbles like a spinning top. Astronomers expect to learn more about the cause of the wobble soon.
Some profound questions about the nature and character of the spiral arms of the Milky Way were answered by the help of Gaia.
Further breakthrough can be expected according to De Bruijne.
The biggest survey of chemical compositions of solar system asteroids was included in the latest data release. The team wants to find exoplanets around distant stars.
You can explore the data visualization on the mission's dedicatedYouTube channel. You can get an in-depth look at the mission's science and workings by visiting the agency's main portal.
How does the universe study the stars?
It was difficult to study theMilky Way before it was known as Gaia.
There are five fascinating revelations about theMilky-Way.
The science with 1 billion objects in three dimensions is done by the European Space Agency.
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