ESA's "Gaia" Telescope Reveals Bounty Of Data On Our Galaxy

 

                      European Space Agency map shows the interstellar dust that fills the Milky Way

The European Space Agency (ESA) on Monday  released a trove of data revealing the extent of interstellar dust in our galaxy.  In the map shown above the dark regions in the center of the Galactic plane (in black) are the regions with an abundance of interstellar dust - then fading to the less abundant yellow as the concentration of dust decreases.

The images and data were collected by the ESA's  Gaia Space Observatory in an effort to create the most accurate and complete map of our galaxy.

Astronomers hope to use the new data to understand better how stars are born and die, and how the Milky Way evolved over billions of years. The data includes information such as the age, mass, temperature and chemical composition of stars  which can be used to determine which stars were born in another galaxy and then migrated to the Milky Way.  In the words of one of the lead scientists, Antonella Vallenari,  who helped lead a consortium of 450 scientists and engineers:

'This is an incredible gold mine for astronomy,"

 Her team's task entailed spending years converting  the measurements collected by the space probe into usable data. Gaia was also able to detect more than 100,000 starquakes, which appear to make the stars blink and allowed scientists to deduce their density, interior rotation and inside temperature.

 

Although it has only collected information on about 1% of the Milky Way’s stars, the Gaia mission is already providing the basis for around 1,600 scientific publications a year. While not nearly the level of household name as the Hubble  or the James Webb Space Telescope, Gaia has revolutionized the study of the Milky Way and enabled leaps in our understanding of the galaxy's evolution that were impossible before.

 For many years, it has been the astronomical space mission producing the most scientific papers. Since its launch in 2013, Gaia has released four batches of data, witch increasingly precise measurements and new types of information about the ages, masses, brightness levels and chemical compositions of stars in the galaxy. 

 Project scientist Timo Prusti said the sheer number of stars observed makes it more likely that scientists will make very rare discoveries. In his words:

'You have to observe a lot of objects in order to get the needle in the haystack,' 

See Also:

 4 big Milky Way mysteries the next Gaia mission data dump may solve

And:

ESA - Gaia overview

And:

Astronomers Reveal Incredible Map of 4.4 Million Galaxies (scitechdaily.com)