The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
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Launched in December 2013, Gaia is destined to create the most accurate map yet of the Milky Way.
By making accurate measurements of the positions and motions of roughly 1% of the total population of stars in the Milky Way, it will answer questions about the origin and evolution of our home galaxy.
The first intermediate data release, containing, among other things, three-dimensional positions and two dimensional motions of a subset of two million stars, demonstrates that Gaia’s measurements are as precise as planned, paving the way to create the full map of one billion stars to be released towards the end of 2017.
The video shows new images of the Milky Way and includes interviews with Fred Jansen, ESA Gaia Mission Manager, and Timo Prusti, ESA Gaia Project Scientist.