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ESA > Our Activities > Space Science > Gaia

Asteroids old and new

A visualisation of the orbits of asteroids observed by ESA’s Gaia satellite, including four recent discoveries

Gaia’s new asteroids

Space Science Image of the Week: While charting the stars, Gaia also observes asteroids and occasionally spots new ones

Weighing the Milky Way

Measurements from Hubble and Gaia improve our estimate of the mass of our Galaxy: 1.5 trillion solar masses

The Universe of Gaia

A taste of the exciting science that is being performed using data from ESA’s Gaia star surveyor, delving into the formation history of our Milky Way

Stellar family portrait

Explore Gaia’s second data release with this interactive visualisation of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, the family portrait of stars in our Milky Way

Gaia data galore

Gaia has published its much awaited second data release, with high precision measurements of nearly 1.7 billion stars

Galactic fingerprint

Space Science Image of the Week: Gaia fingerprints the stars and monitors their motion through the Universe

Waiting for Gaia

Find out why scientists worldwide are excited about Gaia's new data and how it's going to impact all things astronomy

Latest News

Gaia untangles the starry strings of the Milky Way28 August 2019

Gaia untangles the starry strings of the Milky Way28 August 2019 Rather than leaving home young, as expected, stellar ‘siblings’ prefer to stick together in long-lasting, string-like groups, finds a new study of data from ESA’s Gaia spacecraft.

Astronomers spy Europa blocking distant star – thanks to Gaia25 July 2019

Astronomers spy Europa blocking distant star – thanks to Gaia25 July 2019 On 31 March 2017, Jupiter’s moon Europa passed in front of a background star – a rare event that was captured for the first time by ground-based telescopes thanks to data provided by ESA’s Gaia spacecraft.

Gaia starts mapping our galaxy’s bar16 July 2019

Gaia starts mapping our galaxy’s bar16 July 2019 The first direct measurement of the bar-shaped collection of stars at the centre of our Milky Way galaxy has been made by combining data from ESA’s Gaia mission with complementary observations from ground- and space-based telescopes.

Gaia’s biggest operation since launch15 July 2019

Gaia’s biggest operation since launch15 July 2019 On Tuesday 16 July, teams at ESA’s mission control will perform an ‘orbit change manoeuvre’ on the Gaia space observatory – the biggest operation since the spacecraft was launched in 2013.

Observing Gaia from Earth to improve its star maps02 May 2019

Observing Gaia from Earth to improve its star maps02 May 2019 While ESA’s Gaia mission has been surveying more than one billion stars from space, astronomers have been regularly monitoring the satellite’s position in the sky with telescopes across the world, including the European Southern Observatory in Chile,...

Gaia clocks new speeds for Milky Way-Andromeda collision07 February 2019

Gaia clocks new speeds for Milky Way-Andromeda collision07 February 2019 ESA’s Gaia satellite has looked beyond our Galaxy and explored two nearby galaxies to reveal the stellar motions within them and how they will one day interact and collide with the Milky Way – with surprising results.

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