Cidersomerset
14th September 2016, 18:05
Gaia space telescope plots a billion stars
C9QRmC21iQs
Published on 14 Sep 2016
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Gaia space telescope plots a billion stars
By Jonathan Amos
BBC Science Correspondent
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/180E1/production/_91192589_gdr1_signature_hd_mjm2.png
The most precise map of the night sky ever assembled is taking shape.
Astronomers working on the Gaia space telescope have released a first tranche of data
recording the position and brightness of over a billion stars.And for some two million of
these objects, their distance and sideways motion across the heavens has also been
accurately plotted.Gaia's mapping effort is already unprecedented in scale, but it still
has several years to run.Remarkably, scientists say the store of information even now is
too big for them to sift, and they are appealing for the public's help in making
discoveries.To give one simple example of the scope of Gaia: Of the 1.1 billion light
sources in Wednesday's data release, something like 400 million of these objects have
never been recorded in any previous catalogue.
"You're imaging the whole sky in basically [Hubble] space telescope quality and because
you can now resolve all the stars that previously maybe looked as though they were
merged as one star at low resolution - now we can see them," explained Anthony Brown
from Leiden University, Netherlands.
Read More....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37355154
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Keeping Gaia’s memory
vZHY2LU5Cac
Published on 24 Jun 2016
ESA’s Gaia mission is generating an enormous amount of data as it works to plot the
position of a billion stars in three dimensions. But during pre-flight testing one of Gaia’s
memory modules – part of the spacecraft’s onboard ‘hard disk’ – failed. ESA’s Materials
and Electrical Components Laboratory was called in to assess the failure, to see if it was
a one-off or else caused by a general manufacturing issue. The team made use of their
3D X-ray Tomography Machine to perform non-destructive internal scanning of the
module and pin down the source of the fault.
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====================================================
Gaia's mission: solving the celestial puzzle
oGri4YNggoc
Published on 19 Dec 2013
A space mission to create the largest, most-accurate, map of the Milky Way in
three dimensions will revolutionise our understanding of the galaxy and the
universe beyond.On 19th December 2013, a rocket blasted into the sky from a
launch site in French Guiana and travelled 1.5 million km to reach its destination in
orbit around the Sun. The spacecraft is called Gaia. Its mission, funded by the
European Space Agency and involving scientists from across Europe, is to make the
largest, most precise, three-dimensional map of the Milky Way ever attempted.
It will be a census of a billion stars spread across our galaxy. The results, says
Professor Gerry Gilmore from Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy and the Principal
Investigator for UK involvement in the mission, "will revolutionise our
understanding of the cosmos as never before."
C9QRmC21iQs
Published on 14 Sep 2016
======================================================
Gaia space telescope plots a billion stars
By Jonathan Amos
BBC Science Correspondent
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/180E1/production/_91192589_gdr1_signature_hd_mjm2.png
The most precise map of the night sky ever assembled is taking shape.
Astronomers working on the Gaia space telescope have released a first tranche of data
recording the position and brightness of over a billion stars.And for some two million of
these objects, their distance and sideways motion across the heavens has also been
accurately plotted.Gaia's mapping effort is already unprecedented in scale, but it still
has several years to run.Remarkably, scientists say the store of information even now is
too big for them to sift, and they are appealing for the public's help in making
discoveries.To give one simple example of the scope of Gaia: Of the 1.1 billion light
sources in Wednesday's data release, something like 400 million of these objects have
never been recorded in any previous catalogue.
"You're imaging the whole sky in basically [Hubble] space telescope quality and because
you can now resolve all the stars that previously maybe looked as though they were
merged as one star at low resolution - now we can see them," explained Anthony Brown
from Leiden University, Netherlands.
Read More....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37355154
======================================================
======================================================
Keeping Gaia’s memory
vZHY2LU5Cac
Published on 24 Jun 2016
ESA’s Gaia mission is generating an enormous amount of data as it works to plot the
position of a billion stars in three dimensions. But during pre-flight testing one of Gaia’s
memory modules – part of the spacecraft’s onboard ‘hard disk’ – failed. ESA’s Materials
and Electrical Components Laboratory was called in to assess the failure, to see if it was
a one-off or else caused by a general manufacturing issue. The team made use of their
3D X-ray Tomography Machine to perform non-destructive internal scanning of the
module and pin down the source of the fault.
====================================================
====================================================
Gaia's mission: solving the celestial puzzle
oGri4YNggoc
Published on 19 Dec 2013
A space mission to create the largest, most-accurate, map of the Milky Way in
three dimensions will revolutionise our understanding of the galaxy and the
universe beyond.On 19th December 2013, a rocket blasted into the sky from a
launch site in French Guiana and travelled 1.5 million km to reach its destination in
orbit around the Sun. The spacecraft is called Gaia. Its mission, funded by the
European Space Agency and involving scientists from across Europe, is to make the
largest, most precise, three-dimensional map of the Milky Way ever attempted.
It will be a census of a billion stars spread across our galaxy. The results, says
Professor Gerry Gilmore from Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy and the Principal
Investigator for UK involvement in the mission, "will revolutionise our
understanding of the cosmos as never before."