2025-12-01 Gaia Archive downtime

1 December 2025

Currently the Gaia Archive is down for maintenance. The Archive will be back online from 2 December at 12:00.

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2025-11-10 New Gaia DR3 known issue on external catalogue CatWISE2020

11 November 2025

A new known issue was published in relation to the external catalogue CatWISE2020 as available from the Gaia Archive. Find the details on this new known issues through this link: https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/dr3-known-issues#ExternalCatWISE2020

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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

Gaia Bulletin #04

23 July 2025

Gaia Bulletin #04 is out now!

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2025-07-15 You can’t judge a star by its protoplanetary disc

15 July 2025

​​​​​​​Yesterday, a new result was published on the finding on a new gas giant and structures seen in a protoplanetary disk around MP Mus. Find more details here: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2025/05/You_can_t_judge_a_star_by_its_protoplanetary_disc and from the paper published in Nature Astronomy.

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2025-07-09 Downtime on 17 July 2025 between 10:00-11:00 CEST

9 July 2025

A downtime can be expected on 17 July between 10:00 and 11:00 CEST due to maintenance to the network at ESAC. This means that the Gaia Archive will go down.

For Gaia Collaboration members, please realize that this downtime also affects our wiki, jira, svn and databases which are hosted at ESAC.

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2025-06-26 Data Release 4 expected in December 2026

26 June 2025

Currently the Gaia symposium "Gaia: The (TWO) Billion Star Galaxy Census: Anticipating the Leap in Understanding of Planets, Stars, the Milky Way with Gaia DR4" is ongoing at the European Astronomical Society annual meeting in Cork. It was announced that Gaia Data Release 4 can be expected in December 2026. The slides of the presentations... read more

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?

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New transient event class found with Gaia: Extreme Nuclear Transients

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!

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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.

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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.

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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 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!

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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.

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2025-02-06 Gaia symposium at European Astronomical Society annual meeting

6 February 2025

In June 2025, the European Astronomical Society will meet for its annual meeting. A symposium related to the Gaia mission is planned, Symposium S1 "The (TWO) Billion Star Galaxy Census: Anticipating the Leap in Understanding of Planets, Stars, the Milky Way with Gaia DR4"​​​​​​​... read more

2025-02-05 Wobbling stars reveal hidden companions in Gaia data

5 February 2025

Today a story was published on esa.int/gaia on the discovery of an exoplanet Gaia-4b, which was hinted to exist purely from Gaia astrometric data. Find the full story here: Wobbling stars reveal hidden companions in Gaia data: https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Gaia/Wobbling_stars_reveal_hidden_companions_in_Gaia_data

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2025-01-23 Gaia's schedule for tests has changed

23 January 2025

The schedule of the Gaia tests has changed. Gaia is remaining at maximum brightness for longer than initially planned. The Gaia ephemeris service remains valid and should be used for planning ground-based observations.The schedule will be updated here as soon as possible.

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2025-01-19 Follow-up opportunities for Gaia

19 January 2025

Though Gaia stopped taking science observations, it is hard at work to perform a set of technology tests. As part of these tests, Gaia's angle with respect to the Sun will change, and the Gaia spacecraft's brightness is gradually increasing at the moment. While Gaia was a faint object in the sky during its science observation phase, it could... read more

2025-01-15 So long and thanks for all the fish! Last stars observed by Gaia this morning

15 January 2025

Today marks the end of Gaia's science observation phase. A story was published: "Last starlight for ground-breaking Gaia" on ESA's website, along with brand new visuals of our Milky Way (face-on) as well as edge-on. All visuals can be found from The Milky Way page on Gaia Cosmos along with a new animation featuring the Milky Way. An... read more

2025-01-15 61 Cygni marks the end of Gaia's science observation phase

15 January 2025

Gaia's observation programme came to an end today, on 15 January 2025, after ten and a half years of regular sky scanning, netting all the way more than 2600 billion astrometric observations. The measurement of the parallaxes of at least one billion stars was one of the major objectives of the mission at selection time. The results so far... read more