IoW 2022 - Gaia

25 November 2022The Gaia science operations started on the 25th of July 2014, when the spacecraft was turned on in science mode, following the completion of the in-flight commissioning. This 25 November 2022 marks the 100 months of data collection, with a regular daily flow of an average of 70 million new on-board detections and a single significant...

23 November 2022The Gaia mission has many scientific goals: to increase our understanding of the Milky Way, to create the best map so far of our galaxy, and more. But one important aspect of science missions in general is to inspire. Inspiration can lead to the greatest discoveries and the most beautiful ideas spring to mind. One such project, called "Gen...

9 November 2022Gaia is the European Space Agency's astrometric mission to map the Milky Way galaxy in unprecedented detail. The spacecraft has no dedicated particle detection instrumentation but is however able to measure the particle flux at the focal plane by counting the ionization tracks due to the passage of charged particles. On 9 October 2022 an...

4 November 2022As was already hinted at in one of the papers of the Gaia Collaboration "Gaia Data Release 3: Stellar multiplicity, a teaser for the hidden treasure", the Gaia mission is expected to find dark companions of stars, like dormant black holes or dormant neutron stars. Since Gaia's data release 3 and more specifically the release of the multi-star...

26 October 2022Star clusters continually loose their stars until nothing is left of them. If the standard law of gravitation is correct, then the same number of stars leave their star cluster through its front and through its back, as the cluster moves about the Milky Way. Observations acquired now, however, show many more stars in the front of the five...

21 October 2022Monday 13 June 2022 marked a small "push the button" for the Science and Operations IT Unit (SITU) of ESA’s Directorate of Science but a giant leap for the Gaia Collaboration and astronomy. At 12:00 CEST sharp, public access to the Gaia ESA Archive at the ESAC Science Data Centre (ESDC) was unlocked, revealing a wealth of new data in Gaia’s...

6 October 2022The spectrum of a star is a gold mine of information, not only on the star itself but also on the dusty interstellar medium that is between us and the star. Both the star and the interstellar medium absorb the light that is emitted from the stellar surface, and the result is the presence of absorption features in the spectrum. Having different...