Asteroid research benefits from Gaia satellite mission
Wednesday, May 20, 2015 - 09:50
in Astronomy & Space
Astronomical research on asteroids, i.e. minor planets, is also benefiting from the large-scale Gaia mission of the European Space Agency (ESA). Even though the astrometry satellite's main purpose is to precisely measure nearly one billion stars in the Milky Way, it has tracked down a multitude of minor dwarf planets in our solar system.To determine its current position in space and thus ensure Gaia's extremely high measurement accuracy, images are taken every day of the regions of the sky where the very faint satellite is located.