ESA’s decade-long Milky Way Gaia mapping mission still has tons of data to release over the next few years. Expect surprises.

By that metric, the ESA’s Gaia mission is a resounding success. The spacecraft gave us a precise, 3D map of our Milky Way galaxy and has forced us to abandon old ideas and replace them with compelling ...

The Gaia mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) has officially ceased its scientific operations after 12 years of service. This spacecraft, dedicated to mapping the Milky Way, has exhausted ... as ...

Goodnight Gaia. The European Space Agency star-tracking satellite ceased operations on Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025, after 12 years of mapping the Milky Way.

Gaia has therefore built the most precise map of the Milky Way to date, giving the ESA a detailed reconstructed view of our home galaxy. “It contains major changes from previous models ...

Previously, these had been difficult to identify, but with the Gaia space observatory's data having mapped the Milky Way with high precision in three dimensions, more of these streams have been ...

The brighter splotch in the center of the galaxy is the galactic bulge (which looks bulgier in the image at top ... As more Gaia data becomes available, “our view of the Milky Way will become ...

As such, we now also have the best reconstructed view of how our galaxy might look to an outside observer. This new artist impression of the Milky Way incorporates Gaia data from a multitude of ...

"I expect Gaia's best results are still to come." Night has fallen for the star-tracking European Space Agency (ESA) spacecraft, Gaia. The mission, which has been mapping the Milky Way for the ...

An illustration shows the Gaia spacecraft telescope drifting between Earth and the sun as the Milky Way looks on ... gas propellant it uses to spin. The top-hat-shaped craft has been using ...