Gaia, the space surveyor

After more than 10 years of scientific harvesting, an overview of the results of the European Gaia probe with Angélique Barbier and Frédéric Arenou.

Conference summary:

On January 15, 2025, the last data from the Gaia satellite was received by Earth. A page was turned, but the adventure was far from over: the Gaia team still had ten years of scientific data to process.

The Gaia mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) has made an incredible number of discoveries of all kinds. The satellite, nicknamed "the surveyor of space", has collected an enormous harvest of astrometric and spectroscopic data over more than 10 years.

And it's at CNES that these data are processed. A colossal task accomplished by the team at the Toulouse Space Center in cooperation with numerous scientists, notably at the Paris Observatory and the Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur.

During this conference, Angélique Barbier, Gaia Project Manager at CNES, and Frédéric Arenou, Scientific Manager for Multiple and Singular Stars at Paris Observatory (CNRS), will present the main discoveries made thanks to Gaia, and discuss the importance of and prospects for processing these data.

Conference organized by the Association Les Amis de la Cité de l'espace, in partnership with the Cité de l'espace, the Académie de l'Air et de l'Espace and the Association Aéronautique et Astronautique de France.