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On March 27 , scientists bid farewell to the Gaia telescope , bring to a closelipped its groundbreaking 11 - year deputation of mapping theMilky Wayand our cosmic neighborhood .
Though not as famous as some of its peers like the Hubble orJames Webbspace telescopes , Gaia has reshaped our understanding of our abode galaxy , theMilky Way . Since 2014 , theEuropean Space Agency ’s ( ESA ) scope has meticulously charted the cosmos , creating a vast catalog of nearly 2 billion stars , more than 4 million potential galaxies and around 150,000asteroids , with moonspossibly circling hundreds of them .
Artist’s impression of the Gaia telescope mapping stars of the Milky Way galaxy.
These observations have lead to more than13,000 scientific studies , with many more likely to follow in the coming years .
" Gaia ’s extensive data releases are a unequalled treasure trove for astrophysical research , and influence almost all disciplines in astronomy,“Johannes Sahlmann , a physicist at the European Space Astronomy Centre in Spain and a project scientist for the Gaia missionary post , said in astatement .
After 11 years of operations — nearly double its expected lifetime — Gaia ran out of fuel , prompting its operators at ESA to power down and retire the space vehicle .
An illustration of what the Milky Way might look like face-on based on data from the Gaia telescope.
The best map of the Milky Way galaxy
Since it launched in December 2013 , Gaia graph the cosmos from a vantage spot about a million miles ( 1.6 million km ) from Earth , at a patch call Lagrange point 2 ( L2 ) , where the gravitational force of Earth and the Dominicus , and the orbital movement of a satellite Libra each other .
Gaia ’s basal goal was to map the positions and social movement of over a billion wiz within the Milky Way , create the largest , most precise3D single-valued function of our galaxy . To do so , it was equipped with twin telescopes pointed in different directions to measure out the length between stars , while three onboard instrumental role garner information on the positions , velocities , colors as well as chemical compositions of ethereal objects .
The dainty map of our beetleweed it assembled has enable scientists to substantially sympathise the galaxy ’s spiral structure , judge the human body and mass of the dark matter halo that surrounds the Milky Way , and reset the decades - old mystery of our galaxy ’s warped and coggle disk — which is likely due to an on-going hit with the smaller Sagittarius galaxy .
to boot , the catalog has provided astronomers with young perceptiveness into theancient nature of part of our galaxy , suggest that stars began forming in the Milky Way ’s phonograph recording less than 1 billion years after the Big Bang — far originally than the antecedently accept timeline of 3 billion days .
The scope ’s observations have also conduct astronomers to discover previously hidden stellar streams . For example , in 2020 , its database of lead reveal the presence and shape of the largest social organization ever observed in our extragalactic nebula : a vast ensemble of interconnect stellar nursery spanning 9,000 weak - year , known as theRadcliffe Wave , which may have hada survive shock on Earth ’s climate .
" Gaia has interchange our impression of the Milky Way,“Stefan Payne - Wardenaar , a scientific visualiser at the Heidelberg University in Germany , allege in a previousstatement .
The spacecraft has serendipitously appropriate G of starquakes — tiny motions on surfaces of wizard that do them to swell and shrink periodically — supply unique insights into the intimate workings of stars , and spotted high - speed stars both escaping our galaxy and , surprisingly , racing toward it . It also uncovered several cosmic " sleeping colossus , " or fateful holes — one of which islurking extremely cheeseparing to Earth .
Gaia ’s star catalogue has also been used to clock the enlargement rate of the universe , fueling the on-going debate over why the expansion seems to be happen faster than astronomers anticipate .
" It is telling that these discovery are base only on the first few year of Gaia data , and many were made in the last class alone,“Anthony Brown , an associate prof of astronomy at the University of Leiden in Netherlands , said in the statement .
Saying goodbye to the ‘discovery machine of the decade’
On March 27 , ESA command Gaia to utilise its thrusters for the last time , push the spacecraft into a " retirement electron orbit " safely away from Earth and the scientifically significant L2 orbit , which is also family to theJames Webb Space Telescope , Euclid telescopeand China ’s Chang’e 6 satellite .
Last calendar week the mission team deactivated the ballistic capsule ’s official document , which were design with multiple spare system to assure it could boot and summarize operations after any nonstarter . To prevent its computers from powering back on in the future , operator deliberately corrupted its onboard computer software , consort to the ESA affirmation .
" We had to design a decommissioning strategy that involved systematically pick asunder and deactivate the layers of redundance that have safeguard Gaia for so long,“Tiago Nogueira , Gaia ballistic capsule operator , said in the instruction . " We do n’t want it to reactivate in the future and start transmitting again if its solar panel bump sunlight . "
As part of this process , some of Gaia ’s onboard computer software is being overwrite using farewell messages from its squad on Earth , as well as the names of around 1500 hoi polloi that have contributed to the mission over the year . pic.twitter.com/Kf37OTSHtBMarch 27 , 2025
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squad members write the figure of all 1,500 contributors to the Gaia mission into the ballistic capsule ’s onboard memory board , as well as personal parting messages and poems .
The scope may have lead sullen , but scientists hope its discoveries will continue to glitter brightly . So far , only a third of the commission ’s datum has been analyzed , as work on the immense amount of selective information — Gaia is expected to have gathered more than 1 PiB ( 1 million gigabytes ) of data by the end of its commission — takes months . The next mint of scientific discipline data point is set to be expel in 2026 , covering a little over five years of observation , with the 5th and terminal release scheduled for 2030 , which will comprehend the full 10 years of data .
" Gaia has been the find political machine of the decade , a trend that is set to continue , " Brown allege in the affirmation .
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