Downloading data from Gaia is now pretty easy since there is nothing to download. Previously the spacecraft had to maintain a 8.6Mbps connection 24/7 for up to two weeks straight or it would loose data. For me this is the top story of the month. It is the most productive telescope ever (by rate of papers published) and its science will shape the next decades. It is also the foundation of almost everything going on in astronomy. Nowadays spaceflight concentrates on launches and explosion and we tend to overlook the science return we get from the missions.
The warped shape of our galaxy was one of the more comforting discoveries in recent years. It just felt appropriate that it's not perfect. Looking forward to the NIAC stuff.
Now that the Gaia science mission has ended (although I hope its data will still give us lots of exiting discoveries in the coming decade), do you think the Vera C. Rubin Observatory will eventually overtake Gaia as your favourite telescope?
Considering New Glen actually delivered orbital vehicle, I'd say they won this one, even if they didn't recover the bootser, which was secondary to orbit.
Everybody loves a good rivalry but in terms of lift capacity and reusability wouldn't it be more fair to compare New Glenn to Falcon Heavy? Starship is an entirely different beast.
Thanks for all the news! Sad to hear about Gaia reaching end of life but I'm glad there's still a lot of data to go through. Also really interesting to hear about the little red dots explanation.
GAIA has been brilliantly valuable to many sub-fields of astrophyiscs, especially to understand the formation of our Milky Way Galaxy for 10 billion years. Bravo to ESA, European scientists, and the many European subcontractors.
Excellent news summary, thanks! I think the Blue Ghost lander is supposed to give us the first live view of an eclipse of the Sun by the Earth as seen from the Moon. If it lands by the March 13 total lunar eclipse.
So in the story about the "little red dots", does that mean that galaxies are forming around those really early red black holes? Could that possibly explain why there's a black hole at the center of every Galaxy?! 🤯 Oh my gosh, I love science!
They should produce 2 or more copies of e.g. the Gaia-spaceorobe! NASA and USSR did this in the past, for example Voyager 1 and 2, the Pioneer- and Venera-probes and they were all huge successes. I've said this many times during the years - use the bebefit of re-using successful designs and developed groundbreaking tech!!! Get more science for less development-time and less cost! Produce 5 JWST:s and 10 Gaia:s if they are needed. Launch 50% of the copies and then launch the rest later, or whatever optimal launch-sequence. Like they did with Voyager 1 and 2. Beat regards
The telescope is almost out of cold gas, which is the most accurate mean of maintaining the attitude. Without cold gas the telescope cannot provide a measurement accuracy that is of any use. It is not a money issue. The telescope has been going on for more than twice as long as planned.
@@frasercain I made the comment because you said "in March 2025 they are going to finally shut off the spacecraft." I don't think you said anything about it being out of fuel.
Is the imagery shown during the segment about jwst observing sag a* real? If so how is that possible when we have to view the black hole and the galaxy itself edge on from within the galaxy?
Pardon my ignorance but why is Gaia being put to bed? I get end of mission, but has it used up its power or could it be repurposed for further missions?
Whould a planet in orbit around one of the Stars orbiting Sagittarius A* in a highly elliptical orbit, experience noticeable amounts of gravitational time dilation?
I get confused by the new rockets and who owns them. Starship SpaceX. SpaceX is the company and the Starship is the rocket… I forget the other… something Blue Origin…?
@@billionsandbillionsofstars One can say Gaia has died of natural causes. This was not an accident. It just was inevitable that it would run out of fuel. All of this was anticipated and prepared for.
Downloading itself is just a lot of data. The problem is that you bascially just end up with positions on a CCD detector. After that you have to find out which star you were looking at, how it moved since the last observation and what the cause of the movement is. Potentially there is a parallax, stellar motion, exoplanet gravity, variation of basic angle, telescope attitude changes and more. Each contribution has different correlations over time. Now multiple data centers try in multiple steps to analyze the data step by step and iteratively improve the accuracy based on the previous iteration. Then more datacenters focus on specific aspects of the data and analyze specific objects. All of this are hugely complex calculations that are dependend of each other.
I'm not a moon landing conspiracy theory nut. That being said, I am slightly skeptical. The reason being is, that with today's technology and resources from multiple nations, they fail so many times to land successfully. But, NASA did it multiple times 50 plus years ago flawlessly without losing a single spacecraft? This is something that totally gives me pause.
![Everything NASA Discovered with JWST's Year 2. Closest to Farthest [4K]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/wh4G1Wh79Ck/mqdefault.jpg)
![Everything NASA Discovered with JWST's Year 2. Closest to Farthest [4K]](/img/tr.png)
RIP gaia, you legend!💔
Orbit In Peace, Gaia. And thanks for all astrometry data. 😢
Downloading data from Gaia is now pretty easy since there is nothing to download. Previously the spacecraft had to maintain a 8.6Mbps connection 24/7 for up to two weeks straight or it would loose data.
For me this is the top story of the month. It is the most productive telescope ever (by rate of papers published) and its science will shape the next decades. It is also the foundation of almost everything going on in astronomy. Nowadays spaceflight concentrates on launches and explosion and we tend to overlook the science return we get from the missions.
The warped shape of our galaxy was one of the more comforting discoveries in recent years. It just felt appropriate that it's not perfect. Looking forward to the NIAC stuff.
Now that the Gaia science mission has ended (although I hope its data will still give us lots of exiting discoveries in the coming decade), do you think the Vera C. Rubin Observatory will eventually overtake Gaia as your favourite telescope?
Considering New Glen actually delivered orbital vehicle, I'd say they won this one, even if they didn't recover the bootser, which was secondary to orbit.
Everybody loves a good rivalry but in terms of lift capacity and reusability wouldn't it be more fair to compare New Glenn to Falcon Heavy? Starship is an entirely different beast.
Fraser Cain is a treasure in what he does for space knowledge and the public.
Thanks for all the news, Fraser! 😊
Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
Wow. New Glenn just SLOWLY lumbers off that pad. I thought it was going to stop and come back down shortly after it cleared the tower.
Thanks for all the news! Sad to hear about Gaia reaching end of life but I'm glad there's still a lot of data to go through. Also really interesting to hear about the little red dots explanation.
I can't wait for your 2025 NIAC interviews! Best story of the week.
oh my God, that panel flapping was not the sound we heard that was Mach shocks from the engine
Omg, nobody thinks the panel was generating that sound.
Can't tell if Fraser is kidding or not.
3 trillion observations?! Gaia is a legend!
WR140 is one of my favorite objects. It's fantastically beautiful.
thank you for the gaia update
GAIA has been brilliantly valuable to many sub-fields of astrophyiscs, especially to understand the formation of our Milky Way Galaxy for 10 billion years. Bravo to ESA, European scientists, and the many European subcontractors.
Awww 😢 RIP Gaia 💔
Scott and Marcus coming back to chat IFT-7 and New Glenn ????
Excellent news summary, thanks! I think the Blue Ghost lander is supposed to give us the first live view of an eclipse of the Sun by the Earth as seen from the Moon. If it lands by the March 13 total lunar eclipse.
So in the story about the "little red dots", does that mean that galaxies are forming around those really early red black holes? Could that possibly explain why there's a black hole at the center of every Galaxy?! 🤯 Oh my gosh, I love science!
I wonder if the vacuum insulation pipes were too complicated
Regarding the “Little Red Dots”. How did they get so big so early after the Big Bang? Did these super massive black holes form via direct collapse?
6:26 It's like an episode of Seinfeld.
Very interesting! Why is it that many galaxies have black holes at the centre but others don’t? Does it have to do with size?
Had me nervious. Was reading dead as in destroyed
RIP GAIA ,
Have we witnessed or simulated stars colliding? Do they end up combing into a bigger star? The binary star animation made me wonder.
They should produce 2 or more copies of e.g. the Gaia-spaceorobe! NASA and USSR did this in the past, for example Voyager 1 and 2, the Pioneer- and Venera-probes and they were all huge successes.
I've said this many times during the years - use the bebefit of re-using successful designs and developed groundbreaking tech!!! Get more science for less development-time and less cost!
Produce 5 JWST:s and 10 Gaia:s if they are needed. Launch 50% of the copies and then launch the rest later, or whatever optimal launch-sequence. Like they did with Voyager 1 and 2.
Beat regards
Instead of turning GAIA off, why not let some organization or group other than ESA find other uses for it and manage it?
The telescope is almost out of cold gas, which is the most accurate mean of maintaining the attitude. Without cold gas the telescope cannot provide a measurement accuracy that is of any use. It is not a money issue. The telescope has been going on for more than twice as long as planned.
It's out of fuel
@@frasercain I made the comment because you said "in March 2025 they are going to finally shut off the spacecraft." I don't think you said anything about it being out of fuel.
15:30 could it be Theia??
Is the imagery shown during the segment about jwst observing sag a* real? If so how is that possible when we have to view the black hole and the galaxy itself edge on from within the galaxy?
So, are LRDs really early quasars?
The first
Pardon my ignorance but why is Gaia being put to bed? I get end of mission, but has it used up its power or could it be repurposed for further missions?
It is out of propellant, which is used for pointing. The original mission ended in 2018, and it was extended 3 times, so we got all we could from it.
@@stevenscharmer1765 Thank you Steven! RIP GAIA
put new glenn second stage on super heavy. working rocket!
Smart
Whould a planet in orbit around one of the Stars orbiting Sagittarius A* in a highly elliptical orbit, experience noticeable amounts of gravitational time dilation?
I get confused by the new rockets and who owns them. Starship SpaceX. SpaceX is the company and the Starship is the rocket… I forget the other… something Blue Origin…?
Why did Gaia “die”?
End of line
Out of fuel
@@frasercain Oh, that sucks!😞
@@billionsandbillionsofstars
One can say Gaia has died of natural causes. This was not an accident. It just was inevitable that it would run out of fuel. All of this was anticipated and prepared for.
Why does it take so long to download data from Gaia?
Downloading itself is just a lot of data. The problem is that you bascially just end up with positions on a CCD detector. After that you have to find out which star you were looking at, how it moved since the last observation and what the cause of the movement is. Potentially there is a parallax, stellar motion, exoplanet gravity, variation of basic angle, telescope attitude changes and more. Each contribution has different correlations over time. Now multiple data centers try in multiple steps to analyze the data step by step and iteratively improve the accuracy based on the previous iteration. Then more datacenters focus on specific aspects of the data and analyze specific objects. All of this are hugely complex calculations that are dependend of each other.
Why is the data taking years to download, the thing is in orbit, ...i.e. CLOSE?
It's the data processing time on Earth
He was such a good guy ugh. 😞
FAA GROUNDED STARSHIP !!! .. until Jan 21st when DOGE shuts down the FAA.
I didn't see all the SpaceX video "we saw". I was really looking forward to watching the launch. I watched for hours. I got 5 minutes.
I'm not a moon landing conspiracy theory nut. That being said, I am slightly skeptical. The reason being is, that with today's technology and resources from multiple nations, they fail so many times to land successfully. But, NASA did it multiple times 50 plus years ago flawlessly without losing a single spacecraft? This is something that totally gives me pause.
Well, out of the 6 landings, 3 required humans to take control. 🤷♂️
Oh, and of the 3 needing human intervention, that includes the first 2.....
Flawlessly?? Hahaha no.