Its work complete, and with the spacecraft running out of fuel, Gaia is now slated for retirement.
The distant parts of the Milky Way remain educated guesses based on incomplete data, Payne-Wardenaar added.
But the spacecrafts story will live on after its observational work is done.
An artist’s impression of the Milky Way, seen edge-on.Image: ESA/Gaia/DPAC, Stefan Payne-Wardenaar
Gaia has produced 500 terabytes of data so farand thats just from 5.5 years of the spacecrafts observations.
Now all eyes turn towards the preparation of the next data releases.
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