Gaia in your pocket: UB designs an app to track the progress of Gaia mission
Gaia Mission is the app created by UB experts that enables to track the progress of Gaia, a satellite of the European Space Agency (ESA) which is mapping one billion stars during five years in order to create the largest, most precise 3D map of our Galaxy ever made.
The satellite Gaia, which was successfully launched on 19 December 2013, will map a billion stars —roughly 1% of all the stars in our Galaxy— and detect stars up to 400,000 times fainter than those visible to the naked eye. Gaia will contribute to trace the history of the Milky Way, from its origins to its current state. To achieve it, the satellite will chart positions, distances and movements of stars and study their physical properties, for instance age and chemical composition. A group of scientists and engineers from the University of Barcelona have remarkably collaborated in the mission; they are members of the Institute of Sciences of the Cosmos (ICCUB) and the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC).
Gaia Mission is the app created by UB experts that enables to track the progress of Gaia, a satellite of the European Space Agency (ESA) which is mapping one billion stars during five years in order to create the largest, most precise 3D map of our Galaxy ever made.
The satellite Gaia, which was successfully launched on 19 December 2013, will map a billion stars —roughly 1% of all the stars in our Galaxy— and detect stars up to 400,000 times fainter than those visible to the naked eye. Gaia will contribute to trace the history of the Milky Way, from its origins to its current state. To achieve it, the satellite will chart positions, distances and movements of stars and study their physical properties, for instance age and chemical composition. A group of scientists and engineers from the University of Barcelona have remarkably collaborated in the mission; they are members of the Institute of Sciences of the Cosmos (ICCUB) and the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC).
Gaia mission in your pocket
The app Gaia Mission enables to track the progress of this astrophysical project via your iPhone, iPad or iPod. Beautiful images, interactive diagrams, and videos of the satellite explain many aspects of this cornerstone mission, which will revolutionize future astrophysics thanks to the unprecedented accuracy of its astrometric observations.
The app has interactive diagrams of the spacecraft and payload that can be moved 360˚, letting you explore inside the satellite. The trajectory of the satellite and the distance from Earth can be followed via the mission status page, and you can track how much data has been acquired and processed on the mission operations page. Gaia Mission also includes live news updates of this project which constitutes the maximum exponent of a technology that places Europe in a leading position in the field of astrometry.
Stars have never been so close
The app was created by the University of Barcelona and is available for free on iTunes App Store in English, Spanish and Catalan. The University of Barcelona team is now working on the Android version, which will be available later this year. This project is co-funded by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) - Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness.
The Universe in a Petabyte
Data provided by Gaia will be one hundred times more accurate than those got from previous missions. The final catalogue will be published in 2022 and its volume will be one Petabyte, in order words, 1 million Gbytes or about 200 000 DVDsʼ worth. Carme Jordi, lecturer in the Department of Astronomy and Meteorology at the University of Barcelona (UB), affirms: “With Gaia, we will be able to see the entire history of the Milky Way unfolding before our eyes”. “Gaia —she adds— has so many interesting aspects from our view of the Universe, to the life cycles of stars and the detection of exoplanets. With the app you can learn the basics of all of these things and then see how the mission builds up a new picture for us all”.
“There are different levels within the app”, says Marcial Clotet (UB), the engineer who first came up with the idea for the app. “Users can go through the various levels and find really in-depth information to correspond to their level of interest”, he points out.
The app Gaia Mission came on to the market on the occasion of Gaiaʼs launch on 13 December. The satellite is now in operation, so a revision of the app has been made and approved by ESA.