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Gaia news, stories & highlights

2025-06-05 New version of the Gaia ESA Archive published

5 June 2025

Version 3.8 of the Gaia ESA Archive has been published yesterday. Whereas this release mostly contains internal upgrades devoted to preparations towards Gaia DR4, there are two attention points (also highlighted in the release notes). More details?

Tidal disruptions of massive stars

3 June 2025

Thanks to Gaia and the Zwicky Transient Facility a new class of transient events was found: Extreme Nuclear Transients or ENTs. The most energetic transient events now known! Current data shows these events are powered by massive stars (with a weight of about 3 to 10 solar masses) being ripped apart by a supermassive black hole (SMBH). While... read more

2025-06-02 Hubble and Gaia revisit fate of our galaxy

2 June 2025

Over a decade’s worth of NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope data was used to re-examine the long-held prediction that the Milky Way galaxy will collide with the Andromeda galaxy in about 4.5 billion years. The astronomers found that, based on the latest observational data from Hubble and Gaia, there is only a 50-50 chance of the two galaxies... read more

Gaia Bulletin #03

22 May 2025

Gaia Bulletin #03 is out now!

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