"The data that the spacecraft will launch is as accurate as determining the location from Earth of a grain of sand on the moon with an accuracy of one millimeter," explains Prof. Shai Zucker from the Department of Geophysics and Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at Tel Aviv University, a member of the team of researchers who will analyze the spacecraft's data
"The data that the spacecraft will launch is as accurate as determining the location from Earth of a grain of sand on the moon with an accuracy of one millimeter," explains Prof. Shai Zucker from the Department of Geophysics and Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at Tel Aviv University, a member of the team of researchers who will analyze the spacecraft's data
Astronomers all over Europe, and in fact all over the world, are excitedly preparing for the upcoming launch of a spacecraft that is expected to revolutionize our understanding of our galaxy. The spacecraft, which will be called Gaia, will carry a telescope and instruments that will allow to map more than a billion stars with unprecedented precision, and obtain a 2D map of the Milky Way galaxy. The spacecraft, whose cost is estimated at more than XNUMX billion euros, was built by the European Space Agency (ESA). The vast amounts of information are expected to reveal new insights into the formation and development of the Milky Way, and even its future in the next billion years. In addition, Gaia will discover hundreds of thousands of planets orbiting other stars, survey asteroids in our solar system, and provide clues about dark energy, that mysterious factor that apparently accelerates the expansion of the universe.
The spacecraft's construction lasted more than a decade, and its launch is scheduled for December 19, on a Russian Soyuz rocket, from the European Space Agency's launch site in French Guiana. Once the spacecraft reaches its fixed orbit, it will take several months to activate the delicate devices on board. After that, Gaia's mission is expected to last five years. During these five years, Gaia will record the position, brightness and temperature of every celestial object that passes through its field of view - including about a billion stars.
Prof. Shay Zucker from the Department of Geophysics and Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at Tel Aviv University, who is a member of the team of researchers who will analyze the spacecraft data, explains that Gaia's "camera" has more than a billion pixels, and it allows for amazing precision: Gaia will be able to measure the position of a star with an accuracy of 10 microns Arc seconds. In order to explain the ear, such precision can make it possible to determine from the Earth the position of a grain of sand on the Moon with an accuracy of a millimeter. Once Gaia's five-year mission is complete, the precise XNUMXD map of the galaxy will help us answer questions about the origin of the Milky Way galaxy.
Prof. Zucker explains that, like the Earth, Gaia will complete the solar eclipse every year. Similar to XNUMXD vision with two eyes, the measurement of each star from a slightly different position throughout the year will make it possible to measure the dimension of depth, that is, the distance from us.
According to him, the unprecedented accuracy of Gaia will also allow new ways to test the correctness of Einstein's theory of general relativity, through extremely precise measurements of the movement of objects close to us in the solar system. These measurements, along with the movement of the stars in the galaxy, may also shed light on the nature of dark energy, which in a sense works in the opposite direction of gravity.
The accurate mapping will also make it possible to identify the movement of the stars in the galaxy. This movement may also allow the discovery of planets around other stars. This discovery is possible through the discovery of the movement that the planet induces on its mother planet. Another way in which it will be possible to discover planets around other stars is through the brightness changes of the star, which occur when a planet obscures part of its parent star.
The work of Prof. Shai Zucker, the aforementioned member of the team of researchers who will analyze the spacecraft data, focuses on discovering the brightness changes that result from such planets. Together with his research student (and currently a post-doctoral student at the Weizmann Institute) Dr. Yifat Dzigan, they proposed ways to use observations from Earth in order to improve the chances of discovering these planets. Prof. Zucker's research is partially supported by the Ministry of Science and the Israel Space Agency.
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skeptic:
"I wrote about alternatives of scientific research in the field of space, which space research is worth funding and which is not. ” – What is your scientific background? what do you do? And does this have anything to do with science?
I ask this because I want to know the power of your word in matters of this kind. (According to my impression from your other comments - you have no say in matters related to science).
"What will the mapping of our ice sheet, the Milky Way, do for us in the next million years?" Will we travel there in the next million years?"
"In addition, investing in spacecraft for Mars will bring a certain benefit in a 100-year period."
To remind you: the Earth is also in space.
And a flight to Mars is - among other things, also considered a flight in space.
Therefore, what you say contradicts itself. You say we won't travel to space but we will travel in space (to Mars).
” (The next survivors will perhaps be finding missing persons who have been lost, tracking the location of dangerous criminals)”
– It's already happening.
"It's easy - a network of satellites for global telephony at a monthly price of NIS 5 per person, will bring enormous benefit."
- also for terrorists. And in general, why 5 shekels? You don't know what today's shekel will be worth in 100 years. It is possible that NIS 5 will be over and above in 100 years.
Your scientific conduct (in quotation marks) is strange.
It's our luck that someone like you doesn't have a say in these matters. Otherwise we would be left far behind at the scientific/technological level.
For those who read only the first paragraph of my words and drew strange conclusions.
There is no alternative between spending 2 billion dollars on science and spending 2 billion on "pleasure" (alcohol, cigarettes, entertainment). Such an alternative is demagogic because those separate fields that will never exist side by side will never replace each other. Shall we oblige people to live dreary lives and donate the money they spend on pleasures to science? This will never happen.
I wrote about alternatives of scientific research in the field of space, which space research is worth funding and which is not. I brought examples of scientific research with a guaranteed return in the foreseeable future (instead of wasting money on scientific research that has no reasonable return in the next million years). What will the mapping of our ice sheet, the Milky Way, benefit us in the next million years? Will we travel there in the next million years? On the other hand, alternative investments in a global telephone satellite network that will replace the Iridium network will bring an immediate benefit, as well as investing in spaceships to Mars will bring a sure benefit in a 100-year period.
The networks of positioning satellites, Gipias and the Russian network (I forgot its name), bring enormous benefits, and we are only at the beginning of their exploitation (the next exploitations will perhaps be finding missing people who have been lost, location tracking of dangerous criminals). It's easy - a satellite network for global telephony at a monthly price of NIS 5 per person will bring enormous benefit.
skeptic
"Throwing 2 billion dollars on space mapping, a place we might reach in another million years or another billion years, a useless waste."
Wasting 20 billion dollars on smoking every year for 2 billion years = quintillion dollars.
An investment (or "waste" as you say) of 2 billion dollars over a period of 2 billion years = 1 dollar that the state invests every year from the tax money for this purpose.
A contillion dollars vs. 1 dollar…… do you think it's a waste? If so then allow me to call you an uneducated fool.
Because of the thought that it is a luxury that is the global heritage of the American Republican Party, we lost an opportunity to discover the Higgs 10 years ago because the creationists in Congress cut the accelerator budget in Texas, after all the answer is in the book of Genesis...
"What did we get out of it"
http://www.fresh.co.il/vBulletin/showthread.php?t=551293&highlight=%F1%F7%E9%E8%E1%E5%F8%E3
Basic science - including projects whose immediate benefit is not clear - is important for several reasons, including:
A. You never know what you'll find. It's an investment, like any financial investment - and the return can be *very high*. For example: building particle accelerators. How does it help us? A better understanding of the material today will perhaps allow, in the tools of a few decades from now, technologies that we cannot even imagine.
B. curiosity. We strive to know more - for the sake of knowledge and for the sake of understanding the world around us.
However, sometimes basic science is definitely a luxury. And really, in recent years there have been quite a few projects that have been canceled, postponed or reduced due to the global economic crisis.
One point, how easy it is to be an intellectual in retrospect, after all, if they hadn't distributed masks and God forbid there would have been a war (and this was a quite realistic estimate at the time) and chemical missiles would have fallen here, you and others would have shouted "Omission!!", right?
And I miss the days when the science site was a site where the comments were not like the comments on YNET... but apparently that's the price of fame...
Those who are looking for a waste of money should check where all the money went that sinks into the useless medical masks that were distributed to all the citizens of the country.
And as I wrote, I really recommend that you go to San Francisco and take a (very) short trip there on the railing of the Golden Bridge.
That way there will be one less idiot in the country.
(If it's still too extreme for you, feel free to jump...off the bridge)
another one
And in my opinion, your opinions are a bit self-interested and even stupid. (and even more extreme)
"And really no one should pretend what would be a more worthy exploitation of the money from their point of view." - Except you, of course. You, of course, are allowed to pretend and say that: "It does make sense to exclude the state from research that is not security related or related to infrastructure."
"It is also for the benefit of science itself." - You also, of course, know what is better for science. More than "official/professor in the civil service".
In general, there is a problem with the question of who will finance studies that have no benefit in the foreseeable future.
Indeed, this is a real question - why should someone's tax money be used to promote someone's scientific research according to the preferences of a civil servant/professor. Why investigate this and not something else.
Why not let people contribute to research according to what they are interested in. Instead of taking their money.
It does make sense to exclude the state from research that is not security related or related to infrastructure.
It is also for the benefit of science itself.
In any case people have the right to spend their money on anything (legal) available to them.
And really no one should pretend what would be a more worthy exploitation of the money for them.
And the opinions of the anonymous user are a bit extreme in my opinion.
Skeptical, it is more important to throw away 20 billion dollars a year on cigarettes and alcohol, not to mention drugs whose cost is difficult to estimate and even more so their harm.
someone
You're right. Throwing 2 billion dollars on space mapping, a place we might reach in a million years or another billion years, a useless waste.
The same money could have been used in near space exploration.
For example the following investment: establishing a network of satellites for global voice telephony, like the Iridium network but more sophisticated. Imagine the economic benefit to the world if all the inhabitants of the world could use a global voice telephone at a cost of NIS 5 per month. And this is only a starting benefit.
Another example of worthwhile investment: promoting research on the development of spacecraft to travel to Mars. The benefit will not come for another million years, but within 100 years at the most.
There are of course other examples.
It's time to launch the first parallax telescope. A telescope equipped with a billion pixel camera as above that will take advantage of the slingshot effect of several planets (and along the way will produce stunning images of them) to reach far outside the solar system and provide a parallax image of the galaxy. This would surely violate the XNUMXD measurement of the position of the stars. The time has come to launch four such telescopes. Two in the Milka plane and two outside it so that there are no measurements on one plane. Along the way they will also be able to collect measurements of the galactic particle streams as Voyager spacecraft are currently doing.
Just imagine the appearance of the Cancer Nebula (and others far from it) in real XNUMXD!
In short, Gaia will provide for us,
1. The current of movement of all the stars she will observe.
2. If there is a suit between a planet and its parent planet (like the Kepler telescope)
3. To verify the relativity, differential energy, and probably also sizes and masses of the stars.
Is that so?
To someone
In my opinion it is an important project but even if it is a complete waste of money
(as opposed to the Homeland Defense Ministry, for example...), considering
In the fact that this project was built with the funds of European countries, the tax payer
The American should be happy, in the worst case - he is not
The only sucker.
I'm actually interested that the Europeans saw fit to "outsource" and use a missile
Cheap and reliable Russian. Which raises questions about trust and continued development in the industry
European missiles.
These are also usually the same people who don't mind that billions of unnecessary dollars are wasted every year on financing salaries for bankers and capital market people. Anything that does not serve their immediate and personal interest is held as unimportant.
In my opinion, the best answer is: buy a plane ticket to the USA, from the airport - fly to San Francisco, rent a car, then get into the rental car, travel in San Francisco, enjoy the wonderful view, think a little about nature and life, God knows who created all of this , will do thinking with themselves. Then they drove to a bridge called the Golden Bridge. They will stop the vehicle on the side. They will smoke some zingala, once again enjoy the view... and then they will jump off the bridge into the most shiny rock that is reflected in the river and die.
Because they hinder humanity's progress in the right direction from a scientific, technological, political, moral and even evolutionary level (even though what they say is a natural course of evolution).
There are certainly people who will say that this is a terrible waste of money, they will say that there is no reason for the American taxpayer to pay billions of dollars from his own pocket to finance such projects, which have no practical benefit.
What do you think is the best answer for such people?