The European Space Agency's Gaia satellite creates a precise radiation map of the Large Magellanic Cloud, showing the massive stars and prominent star-forming regions
The Gaia satellite maps the Large Magellanic Cloud using advanced imaging techniques.
The Large Magellanic Cloud, one of the closest galaxies to our Milky Way, as seen by the Gaia satellite using information from the mission's second data release.
This view is not a photograph but was created by mapping the total amount of radiation received by Gaia at each pixel, along with measurements of the radiation made through various filters on the spacecraft to create color information.
In this image, the brightest and most massive stars are dominant, which shine much brighter than the fainter and less massive stars. In this view, the galaxy's pole is outlined in great detail, along with specific regions of star formation such as the Giant Tarantula Nebula, visible just above the galaxy's center.
The European Space Agency's Gaia mission is an ambitious project that aims to create the most accurate and comprehensive 2013D map of the Milky Way galaxy. Gaia was launched in December 1.5 and operates from a fixed location approximately 2 million km from Earth, at the second Lagrange point (LXNUMX). Its mission is of great importance in understanding the composition, formation and evolution of our galaxy.
Gaia's sophisticated instruments measure the positions, distances and movements of stars with unprecedented precision. The spacecraft is equipped with two optical telescopes and a billion-pixel camera, the largest ever flown into space, and can observe more than a billion stars, about 1 percent of all stars in the Milky Way. These observations provide insights into the physical properties of stars such as luminosity, temperature and composition and help scientists piece together the galactic puzzle.
The data collected by Gaia has enormous scientific value, contributing to many fields of astronomy. Beyond mapping stars, Gaia also discovers and catalogs thousands of extrasolar planets, asteroids in our solar system, and distant galaxies. In addition, she tests Einstein's theory of general relativity by measuring the bending of starlight by the Sun's gravity. Gaia's mission, originally intended to operate until 2020, has been extended, promising more surveys and detailed discoveries that continue to shape our understanding of the cosmos.
to the site of the European Space Agency's Gaia spacecraft
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