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About 1.7 million stars analyzed 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 about 1.7 million stars in the Milky Way, which were collected over the past two years. This data coming 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 has the task of transforming the information collected into visualizations of the Milky Way.

The work done by the Portuguese team has enabled the development of a unique visualization platform, accessible to all in the field dedicated to the Gaia Mission on the portal of the European Space Agency. The data collected includes information about the positions, distance indicators and motions of the stars and also about high precision measurements of asteroids in the Solar System and stars beyond our galaxy.

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

More information at www.esa.int