gaiaops

[JH] Yes indeed we will and will also contain information about the motion of the stars so we can play it forward or backwards in time and see how they are moving. Gaia will reach up to the center of the milky way, further in regions outside the galactic plane which is more dusty.

Hard to pick a biggest. As you can imagine Gaia produces a lot of data and we have to get that efficiently back from L2, 1.5 million kms away. Gaia is the biggest user of the large ESA ground stations (35m diameter) and we have to make sure we use them efficiently (they're shared with other missions). We model in advance which part of the sky Gaia is looking at (some areas are less dense then others and need more or less data). We also model the link budget (how fast we can downlink data based on antenna performance). This means we know how long we need every day and don't waste time. Also since we average 14hrs a day of downlink we automate about 40% of our ground station passes. [DM]

Well, just like any job there are indeed days that are not as exciting as others! But in general I am extremely privileged to work at such a great place on such an interesting mission with a bunch of cool people. For me personally the moment of highest excitement was the launch day – in the first few moments after Gaia was separated from the rocket and we waited for the first signal from space, I could literally feel my heart pounding. The whole first year of operations was generally exciting, when we really got to “know” Gaia and how he/she/it (?!) behaves in her environment. Right now our task is about keeping Gaia operating as well as possible and making sure as much data as possible comes to ground to obtain as good a map as possible – and that in itself is an exciting, interesting and challenging thing to do every day! [PC]

[JH] Regarding the Planet Nine I think it would be too dim for Gaia, I think its estimated magnitude would be 24-25 and Gaia "only" reaches up to magnitude 20-21, Gaia's contribution in the Solar System is more relevant in the field of the asteroids as Gaia sees them and sees them moving so it detects new ones and also send alerts for the known ones so that they can be followed up from ground in order to improve the knowledge of their orbit.

We've already seen a first PR product! It's a fly-thru based on a combo of initial Gaia data mashed up with earlier Hipparcos data: http://www.esa.int/spaceinvideos/Videos/2016/09/From_the_Solar_System_to_the_Hyades_cluster I can only assume that the full set of Gaia data will enable something better [DS]