Current Context: The European Space Agency (ESA) concluded the Gaia mission on March 27, 2025, after over a decade of mapping the Milky Way.

• Key Facts
  • Launch: December 2013.
  • Objective: Create a precise 3D map of the Milky Way, analyzing ~2 billion stars.
  • Positioning: Operated at Lagrange Point 2 (L2), 5 million km from Earth.
• Achievements:
  • Detected a new type of black hole through gravitational effects.
  • Discovered 150,000+ asteroids and mapped the galaxy’s structure, including its warped disc and bulge.
  • Produced 3 trillion observations and contributed to over 13,000 scientific publications.
  • Technology: Equipped with a billion-pixel camera and instruments for astrometry, photometry, and spectroscopy.