Gaia AMA – ask us anything!

We fly ESA's Gaia mission to map 1 billion stars. Ask us anything!

On 21 November, 16:00 CET start, ESA will host a live 'Ask Me Anything' chat via Reddit featuring the Gaia flight control team and focusing on the art and science of mission operations.

Gaia mapping the stars of the Milky Way. Credit: ESA/ATG medialab; background: ESO/S. Brunier

Gaia’s primary objective is to survey one billion stars in our Galaxy and local galactic neighbourhood in order to build the most precise 3D map of the Milky Way and answer questions about its origin and evolution.

Gaia is expected to find up to ten thousand planets beyond our Solar System and hundreds of thousands of asteroids and comets within it. The mission will also reveal tens of thousands of failed stars and supernovae, and will even test Einstein’s famous theory of General Relativity.

Launched in 2013, Gaia has already generated its first catalogue of more than a billion stars – the largest all-sky survey of celestial objects to date.

Join us

Operating Gaia is demanding and the team have solved a number of challenges to ensure the mission continues to meet its ambitious goals.

Next Monday, Spacecraft Operations Manager Dave Milligan and the Gaia flight control team will chat live from the Astronomy Missions Control Room at ESOC, ESA's mission control centre in Darmstadt, Germany.

Dave and the team will be joined by ESA's Uwe Lammers, Gaia's Science Operations Manager, at ESAC, ESA's European Space Astronomy Centre, near Madrid, Spain.

On 21 November, the link to the Reddit AMA page will be posted here.

Join us live on Monday, 21 November, 16:00 - ca. 17:15 CET

Additional information will be posted in Twitter using the official hashtag: #GaiaAMA

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