Gaia Bulletin #05

5 November 2025

Gaia Bulletin #05 has been published now...

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2025-11-05 Extended downtime expected of the Gaia Archive

5 November 2025

An extended downtime is expected of the Gaia archive from Friday 5 December 15:00 CET until Wednesday 10 December 10:00 CET to allow for maintenance. Gaia data is also served from our partner data centres. Our apologies for the inconvenience.

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2025-10-31 New website for the Science programme

31 October 2025

A new website for the science programme was launched: https://www.science.esa.int/. Also Gaia can be found, with a page featuring a summary and key milestones of the Gaia mission.

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2025-10-29 ESA internship opportunities with the Gaia mission

29 October 2025

Soon, the ESA internship opportunities will be announced on ESA's job portal. The opportunities at the Science and Operations Department (SCI-S) and the Science Engagement & Oversight Office (SCI-E) are already announced on this website: https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/science-internships/2026-projects.

Two of these... read more

2025-10-06 Gaia's uncalibrated spectra

6 October 2025

Gaia observed the whole sky for 10.5 years according to its scanning law and has seen sources about once or twice per month on average, making Gaia particularly suited to the detection of slowly varying objects. The Gaia Photometric Science Alerts System first noticed a brightening in a faint Gaia source on 12 August 2018. It had become... read more

2025-10-03 Gaia in the Paris subway

3 October 2025

Travelling through Paris these days? You can see a set of astronomy visuals at the Montparnasse-Bienvenüe station called "Windows to the Universe" between 4 September and 28 October 2025. Also the Gaia sky map showing Gaia's stellar motions is featured! More information (in French) from CNRS.

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2025-10-03 New release of Gaia Sky

3 October 2025

Gaia Sky version 3.7.0 has been released on 1 October. Gaia Sky is an open source 3D universe visualization platform which can support a billion of objects. A perfect tool for making visualisations for the billion star surveyor, Gaia! Find more information on our tools page and the Gaia Sky page.

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2025-09-30 Gaia discovers our galaxy's great wave

30 September 2025

Our Milky Way galaxy never sits still: it rotates and wobbles. And now, data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia space telescope reveal that our galaxy also has a giant wave rippling outwards from its centre. Find this latest story... read more

2025-09-29 Gaia fading away into space: Farewell Gaia!

29 September 2025

On 27 March 2025, ESA's Gaia spacecraft was deactivated and placed into a retirement orbit during a moving ceremony at the ESOC premises in Darmstadt, Germany. This means that there is no more communication with the spacecraft, and the system that kept the spacecraft pointing in a stable direction, is no longer active. Gaia is hence purely... read more

2025-09-16 Fly through Gaia’s 3D map of stellar nurseries

16 September 2025

Scientists created the most accurate three-dimensional map of star-formation regions in our Milky Way galaxy, based on data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia space telescope. This map will teach us more about these obscure cloudy areas, and the hot young stars that shape them. Find the full story... read more

2025-09-09 Update of the Gaia Milky Way infographic

9 September 2025

An update to a well-known Milky Way infographic has been published, based on the new Gaia Milky Way map (https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/milky-way). This updated infographic can be found on the page for the "Anatomy of the Milky Way": www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2016/09/Anatomy_of_the_Milky_Way. If you are interested to see what the... read more

2025-08-26 Gaia proves our skies are filled with chains of starry gatherings

26 August 2025

In the past decade, the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission has revealed the nature, history, and behaviour of billions of stars. Our pioneering stargazer has reshaped our view of the skies around us like no other, revealing that star clusters are more connected than expected over vast distances. A full overview story on... read more