December 19 – Launch of Gaia

nPosted on December 19, 2017

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nDo you know the name Gaia? 

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nIn Greek mythology, Gaia is the personification of the planet Earth. She is a sort of Mother Earth figure who is the mother of all life on Earth.

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nBut when we say that Gaia was launched on this date in 2013, we of course mean a spacecraft named Gaia. It’s a space observatory that was created by the European Space Agency. Its mission is to build the biggest and best 3-D space catalog ever created. The goal is to include a billion objects in space, including planets, stars, comets, asteroids, quasars, and more.

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nThe planned mission is five years, so Gaia may be near the end of its life. However, the mission may be extended up to four years if conditions allow it.

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nOne of the big things about Gaia is that the measurements taken of, say, the yearly motion of a star are really precise –
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nnthe equivalence of measuring the size of a pinhead on the Moon, as seen from the Earth!

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nScientists can use the data gathered by Gaia, and published in a series of increasingly exact star catalogs, in all sorts of research. One astronomer has used the data to compute the orbit of a dwarf galaxy around the Milky Way Galaxy (our own galaxy). Gaia scientists were also able to detect a supernova in another galaxy.

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nAlso on this date:

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nPlan ahead:

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• nDecember holidays 

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• nDecember birthdays

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• nHistorical anniversaries in December

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• nJanuary holidays 

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• nJanuary birthdays 

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• nHistorical anniversaries in January

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