ESA Gaia Science Community - Gaia

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Gaia news, stories & highlights

2025-05-13 Gaia DR3 sources with high proper motions

13 May 2025

The fastest stars on the sky, now updated thanks to Gaia. Find the new table in our latest story.

2025-04-29 Gaia spots odd family of stars desperate to leave home

29 April 2025

Gaia has spotted an unusual family of stars all strangely eager to leave home – a family we couldn’t have discovered without the star-surveying spacecraft, and one unlike all others we have spotted to date. A story on this topic was published... read more

2025-04-16 Birthplace of magnetar investigated thanks to Hubble and Gaia

16 April 2025

Thanks to Hubble and Gaia, the birthplace of the magnetar SGR 0501+4516 was investigated in more detail. It was not born in a neighbouring supernova as previously thought, its birthplace is now unknown. More details here: https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Hubble_investigates_a_magnetar_s_birthplace.

2025-03-28 Gaia: rewriting the story of our Milky Way

28 March 2025

For over a decade, ESA’s Gaia mission has mapped our galaxy with stunning precision—rewriting the story of the Milky Way. As its mission enters a new phase, we look back at its most groundbreaking discoveries so far (based on only 3 years of data) with this... read more

2025-03-27 Farewell Gaia! Spacecraft operations come to an end

27 March 2025

A story was published on esa.int/gaia in view of Gaia's spacecraft passivation. The story can be found here: https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Operations/Farewell_Gaia!_Spacecraft_operations_come_to_an_end

2025-03-27 Gaia passivation

27 March 2025

"The epitaph of Gaia: Stop, traveler, as you pass by. A science jewel was I. Many minds were set on me. Now, I drift as cold debris." Today the Gaia spacecraft was moved into its retirement orbit and passivated. An special day for the Gaia mission operations team and the many people working in the Gaia Collaboration for years on this... read more

2025-03-21 The disappearance of Gaia

21 March 2025

On 4 March, astronomer Zhuo-Xiao Wang captured this view of the sudden disappearance of ESA’s Gaia spacecraft. After more than 11 years in space mapping the motions and properties of billions of stars, the spacecraft’s operations are coming to an end. Gaia will be switched off on 27 March 2025. During a series of final test operations, flight... read more

2025-02-21 Opening for a Gaia-related postdoc position in Leiden

21 February 2025

Applications are invited for a postdoctoral position at Leiden Observatory to work on (spectro-)photometric data processing for the Gaia mission in preparation for Gaia DR5. The tasks foreseen include: quality assessment of the calibration of the BP/RP spectra and the integrated photometry obtained from these spectra; studying and developing... read more

2025-02-21 Gaia spacecraft passivation on 27 March

21 February 2025

On 27 March 2025, the Gaia spacecraft will be passivated. While the Gaia spacecraft will enjoy its well-deserved retirement, the Gaia mission is far from over. The Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium and ESA's Gaia science operations team is hard at work preparing Gaia's Data Release 4 (expected ~2026) and Gaia Data Release 5... read more

2025-02-21 Another follow-up opportunity on 4 March to observe Gaia

21 February 2025

The schedule on the page with information on how to observe Gaia (https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/observe-gaia) has been updated. There will be another opportunity to observe Gaia on 4 March when the spacecraft will be shortly visible at its peak brightness of approximately 15th magnitude. Find observations made across the... read more

Gaia Bulletin #02

11 February 2025

Gaia Bulletin #02 is out now!

2025-02-11 Follow-up campaign to observe the Gaia spacecraft

11 February 2025

Many citizen astronomers have observed the Gaia spacecraft while it is more easily visible in the night sky and shared their observations with us. A dedicated webpage to cover this follow-up campaign has just been published and can be found here: https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/ground-based-observations-of-gaia-spacecraft-2025.