Gaia mission is a space observatory of the European Space Agency, launched in 2013 and expected to operate until 2025.
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20 Facts About Gaia mission
2.
The Gaia mission aims to construct by far the largest and most precise 3D space catalog ever made, totalling approximately 1 billion astronomical objects, mainly stars, but planets, comets, asteroids and quasars, among others.
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4.
Successor to the Hipparcos mission, Gaia is part of ESA's Horizon 2000+ long-term scientific program.
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5.
The name "Gaia mission" was originally derived as an acronym for Global Astrometric Interferometer for Astrophysics.
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6.
Total cost of the Gaia mission is around €740 million, including the manufacture, launch and ground operations.
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7.
Gaia mission was launched by Arianespace, using a Soyuz ST-B rocket with a Fregat-MT upper stage, from the Ensemble de Lancement Soyouz at Kourou in French Guiana on 19 December 2013 at 09:12 UTC .
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8.
Each celestial object was observed on average about 70 times during the five years of the nominal Gaia mission, which has been extended to approximately ten years and will thus obtain twice as many observations.
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9.
Gaia mission was successfully launched on 19 December 2013 at 09:12 UTC.
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10.
Testing and calibration phase, which started while Gaia mission was en route to SEL2 point, continued until the end of July 2014, three months behind schedule due to unforeseen issues with stray light entering the detector.
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11.
When Gaia mission entered regular scientific operations in July 2014, it was configured to routinely process stars in the magnitude range 3 – 20.
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12.
In 2020 the Gaia mission was further extended through 2022, with an additional "indicative extension" extending through 2025.
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13.
The limiting factor to further Gaia mission extensions is the supply of nitrogen for the cold gas thrusters of the micro-propulsion system, which is expected to last until November 2024.
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14.
Several Gaia mission catalogues are released over the years each time with increasing amounts of information and better astrometry; the early releases miss some stars, especially fainter stars located in dense star fields and members of close binary pairs.
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15.
The first data release, Gaia mission DR1, based on only 14 months of observation was on 14 September 2016 and is described in Astronomy and Astrophysics.
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16.
An outreach application, Gaia mission Sky, has been developed to explore the galaxy in three dimensions using Gaia mission data.
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17.
In November 2020, Gaia mission measured the acceleration of the solar system towards the galactic center as 0.
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18.
In March 2021, the European Space Agency announced that Gaia mission had identified a transiting exoplanet for the first time.
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19.
In May 2022, the confirmation of this exoplanet, designated Gaia mission-1b, was formally published, along with a second planet, Gaia mission-2b.
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20.
Visualisation of Gaia mission scanning the sky in great circles lasting about 6 hours from July 2014 to September 2015.
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