Gaia
Gaia
Gaia launched into space on
December
19th,
2013
and
is now
unknown km from Earth.
Its primary destination
is
the Sun-Earth L2 point,
which
it arrived at on
January
8th,
2014
.
Wherever Gaia goes, it carries its trusty
photometer, spectrometer, and star scanner.
Gaia often chats with humans from
ESA.
The Gaia space probe aims to create a detailed three-dimensional map of the Milky Way galaxy. By measuring the motion of one billion stars (approximately one percent or less of all the stars in the Milky Way), the Gaia mission will be able to study the formation and evolution of our galaxy. The mission is expected to last five years with the probe observing each of the billion stars seventy times. Along the way, Gaia is expected to discover exoplanets (planets outside of our Solar System), asteroids, comets, brown dwarf stars, supernovas and quasars.
Worth Exploring:
- an iPhone app to receive updates on the mission
- the Gaia team blog
(top image: a test image taken by Gaia of a star cluster in the Large Magellanic Cloud, ESA/DPAC/Airbus DS)