GAIA spacecraft and fly to your destination, a point located 1.5 million kilometers from Earth and from which three-dimensional will map the Milky Way. The probe of the European Space Agency (ESA) has taken off Thursday from the Spaceport in French Guiana at 10.12 (Spanish GMT) aboard a Soyuz launcher, the same type that is also used for manned missions to the Space Station International (ISS). Gaia telescope separation occurred 42 minutes after takeoff.
“It is the dream machine for astrophysicists,” said Alvaro Giménez, head of the scientific program of the European Space Agency (ESA). As stated, during the 20 years that have elapsed since the project was presented, Gaia has cost about 750 million euros .
since human beings began to study the night sky, calculate the position of each star has been one of the main tasks for understand and know what Galileo called “the dark maze “. The Greek Hipparchus was one of the fathers of this art called astrometry.
After many hours watching the sky, in the year 129 BC the Greek astronomer managed to complete a catalog of a thousand stars. Two millennia later, everything is set in French Guiana for launch this Thursday, a sophisticated space telescope whose mission will be to map billion stars in our Galaxy . Although many seem, it is only 1% of the estimated exist in our Milky Way, an album in which concentrate a hundred billion stars.
if Hipparchus observed the sky from Greece, the Gaia satellite will from space, using the largest digital camera built for a scouting mission . In addition to stars, the new probe of the European Space Agency (ESA) identify new asteroids, planets outside our Solar System icy bodies, black holes devouring matter or giant black holes in other galaxies.
After several delays from the initial schedule, the launch of Gaia, the great mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) of 2013, was scheduled for the beginning of autumn, but it has been postponed until the year rush. Last October, a glitch in one of the card one month delayed the launch of the ship , which had already been moved to Guyana from Toulouse components for launch around 20 November. There, at the headquarters of the company Astrium all parts of this probe in its construction have participated Middle European Business Centener were assembled.
ship, which on Earth has weighing 2,000 kilos and has ten foot wingspan , will circle around the sun Specifically, it will orbit around a position that is called L2. It is one of the five “Lagrange points”, where the gravitational forces of the Sun, Earth and Moon are balanced. Provides a stable thermal environment with moderate radiation, which will help not too damaged instruments, protected by a large parasol to be deployed when in orbit.
Mosthundred billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, astronomers explain the European Space Agency, were born in our galaxy but many others originated in small external galaxies that merged with ours. Just looking at a star you can get a lot of information. And Gaia observe each star about 70 times throughout the mission . Some data lead others. Finding out the distance that is astronomers can calculate its luminosity and size, and thus obtain information on the nature and age.
probe actually consists of two telescopes that work together and have a total of ten rectangular mirrors to collect and focus light into the three screening instruments . One such instrument measured the positions of the stars in the sky, another speed and provide other information about the color of celestial bodies to determine its temperature, mass and chemical composition
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