Gaia Space Probe Retires

Nobody and nothing works forever, even space probes retire. The European space probe Gaia ended its work this week after more than 10 years of operation, during which it revolutionized the way people understand our Milky Way galaxy, informs DPA. "Today marks the end of its scientific observations and we celebrate this incredible mission, which has already exceeded all our expectations, lasting almost twice its intended operating time," said Carole Mundell, director of science at the European Space Agency (ESA). Since mid-2014, this space probe has made 3 trillion observations and created the most extensive and accurate map of our galaxy. ESA Director Josef Aschbacher said that Gaia "has overturned even the most basic concepts that people had about the central axis and spiral arms of our galaxy." Although the probe has stopped taking pictures, the information it has already recorded will continue to come to Earth and will be evaluated by specialists at ESA, whose headquarters are in Paris. Two large data sets are scheduled to be released in 2026 and towards the end of this decade. The objective of Gaia was to capture the positions, movements, distances and brightness of almost 2 billion celestial bodies. They are equivalent to about 1% of our galaxy. The first two star catalogues compiled with the help of the Gaia probe were presented in 2016 and 2018. The observations made by Gaia have also allowed scientists to make numerous discoveries about black holes and possible moons of asteroids. The European probe will be placed in a so-called "retirement orbit", away from the gravitational influence of the Earth. Its operation will be completely stopped at the end of March.