Saying Farewell to the Spacecraft That Mapped the Milky Way

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.3 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 26 February 2025

⏱️ 17 minutes

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Summary

The Gaia spacecraft stopped collecting data this January after about 11 years and more than three trillion observations. Senior space and physics editor Lee Billings joins host Rachel Feltman to review Gaia’s Milky Way–mapping mission and the tidal streams, black holes and asteroids the spacecraft identified. Recommended reading: New Maps of Milky Way Are Biggest and Best Yet https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gaias-multi-billion-star-map-of-the-milky-way-keeps-getting-better/ Astronomers Discover Milky Way’s ‘Sleeping Giant’ Black Hole Shockingly Close to Earth https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/milky-way-sleeping-giant-black-hole-shockingly-close-to-earth/ E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg, Naeem Amarsy and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest Lee Billings. Our show is edited by Madison Goldberg with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:30.1	For Scientific American Science quickly, I'm Rachel Seltman. You've probably heard of space
0:36.0	telescopes like Hubble and the James Webb. They're famous for giving
0:40.4	us breathtaking images of the cosmos and providing countless people around the world with
0:45.3	very pretty phone backgrounds. But meanwhile, a spacecraft you probably haven't heard of has been
0:51.4	busy shaping our understanding of the universe in a quieter, less
0:55.4	glamorous way. My guest today is Lee Billings, a senior editor covering space and physics for
1:01.3	Scientific American. He's here to tell us why the European Space Agency's Gaia spacecraft is so
1:07.2	important, and why, even though the Gaia mission is technically coming to a close, its scientific
1:12.8	legacy is only just beginning. Lee, thanks so much for joining me today. Rachel, it is my great pleasure
1:23.0	once again. So my understanding is that you're here today to tell us about the end of a mission
1:29.9	that most of us don't even know how much we're going to miss. What is Gaia to start us off?
1:37.0	That's right. So Gaia is a spacecraft that was launched by the European Space Agency way
1:43.2	back in December of 2013.
1:45.0	And it was on a mission to create the best, biggest, most accurate map of the Milky Way ever.
1:53.0	And it recently stopped taking science data as of January 15th.
1:57.0	And so I'm here to celebrate Gaia and tell you why Gaia is so cool and why even though you should miss it, the best is actually still yet to come.
	...

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