Sky-scanning complete for Gaia

Direct link to some very very nice images and animations: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.esa.int&#x2F;Science_Exploration&#x2F;Space_Science&#x2F;Gaia" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.esa.int&#x2F;Science_Exploration&#x2F;Space_Science&#x2F;Gaia</a><p>Two of my favorites: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.esa.int&#x2F;ESA_Multimedia&#x2F;Images&#x2F;2025&#x2F;The_best_Milky_Way_map_by_Gaia" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.esa.int&#x2F;ESA_Multimedia&#x2F;Images&#x2F;2025&#x2F;The_best_Milk...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.esa.int&#x2F;ESA_Multimedia&#x2F;Images&#x2F;2025&#x2F;01&#x2F;The_best_Milky_Way_map_by_Gaia_edge-on" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.esa.int&#x2F;ESA_Multimedia&#x2F;Images&#x2F;2025&#x2F;01&#x2F;The_best_M...</a>

Gaia has a <i>1.0 × 0.5 m focal plane array on which light from both telescopes is projected. This in turn consists of 106 CCDs of 4500 × 1966 pixels each, for a total of 937.8 megapixels.</i><p>Neat.

IIRC Gaia had a performance degradation because of stray light, probably ice on the border of it&#x27;s aperture[1].<p>How has that affected this result?<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blogs.esa.int&#x2F;gaia&#x2F;2014&#x2F;06&#x2F;16&#x2F;preliminary-analysis-of-stray-light-impact-and-strategies&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blogs.esa.int&#x2F;gaia&#x2F;2014&#x2F;06&#x2F;16&#x2F;preliminary-analysis-o...</a>

I wonder if it could keep giving us useful data without the precision rotation? Intuitively it seems like we should be able to figure out where it&#x27;s pointing by star-matching plus dead reckoning based on the last frame.

Farewell, friend. Hello, LSST.

Has anyone created a 3D map, available via web and with ability to fly through, jump to stellar objects by name, look around, etc?

Hope they have captured an image of Planet Nine somewhere there, and eventually are able to pinpoint it.

Uh-huh, just in time it seems.<p>&quot;Gaia’s fuel tank is now approaching empty&quot;<p>Well, congrats to all involved to such a supremely successful and important mission. When I went to school, it was said that astronomers were happy if they get the order of a measurement right. No such excuses anymore (at least for some 2 billion &quot;nearby&quot; objects)!

And now to use the data to make the most realistic scifi game. With correct stellar motion during relativistic travel.

Now that most stars are mapped, next step: map all the planets.

I really wish they would have identified Gaia as some kind of satellite. Gaia is also a name for Earth itself.

You may want to know: the high-res images which are offered for downloading contain the same image which is shown on the page, that is, the infographic.<p>Not worth the download, as I thought that it would contain a huge panorama of the sky.