Around 1.7 million stars analysed by ESA's Gaia mission

The European Space Agency (ESA), through the Gaia Mission, has released a new set of data on the mapping and exact position of around 1.7 million stars in the Milky Way, which were collected over the last two years. This data arriving from space has been analyzed by a Portuguese team from the Multidisciplinary Center for Astrophysics (CENTRA), which has been part of the Mission since the beginning and which has the function of transforming the information collected into visualizations of the Milky Way.

The work carried out by the Portuguese team made it possible to develop a unique visualization platform, accessible to everyone in the field dedicated to the Gaia Mission, on the European Space Agency portal. The data collected includes information about the positions, distance indicators and movements of stars, as well as high-precision measurements of asteroids that are part of the Solar System and stars, as well as our galaxy.

The Mission has revealed details of the composition of the Milky Way's stellar population and how these stars move, which has contributed to further investigation into their formation and evolution.

More information at www.esa.int