Gaia telescope ready for space

Imagine for a moment a camera with “a billion” pixels. And now imagine what a camera like that could do when it comes to taking pictures in space.

Scientists with the European Space Agency have fitted a billion pixel camera to the Gaia space telescope that will launch Thursday. This telescope is so sensitive, its creators say it could measure a human thumbnail on the moon.

They hope to make a 3D map of the Milky Way in an effort to learn more about the origin and evolution of the universe. Gaia will orbit around the sun and scan the sky.

Timo Prusti is a Gaia Project Scientist: “For every professional astronomer, there is no need to explain how fundamental Gaia is. Everyone knows that when you get the distances to stars, it’s the basis of all the rest of the astronomy. And everyone is looking forward to getting this data in hands.”

Gaia will map the stars with unprecedented precision by surveying more than a billion stars determining their precise positions in space and their motions through it.