The European Space Station (ESA) is going to carry out an ambitious project that consists of nothing less than surveying one billion stars within our galaxy. It is called the Gaia mission and it will take off at the end of 2013 from the European Spaceport of French Guiana.
To make this ‘space catalog’, Gaia will use instruments so precise that, if they were on Earth, they could measure the thumb of a person on the Moon. As a result, the mission hopes to find extrasolar planets, brown dwarf stars, and hundreds of thousands of asteroids. On average, Gaia will discover each day 10 stars surrounded by its own planetary system, 10 stars exploding in other galaxies, 30 ‘failed’ stars, or brown dwarfs, and large numbers of quasars powered by supermassive black holes.
Gaia will orbit around the second Lagrange point or L2, which is 1.5 million kilometers further from the Sun than it is from Earth. This orbit accompanies our planet in its translational movement, so that the satellite, the Earth and the Sun will always remain aligned and the last two will not get in the way of Gaia’s observations.
The data will be received by 35 meter high antennas located in Cebreros (Spain) and Nueva Norcia (Australia). The mission will also study the effect of the Sun’s gravitational field on starlight, which will allow Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity to be tested. ESA is currently conducting the first tests and preparing all the equipment for the mission.
