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Saying Farewell to the Spacecraft That Mapped the Milky Way

Scientific American 333 18 hours ago
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The Gaia spacecraft stopped collecting data this January after about about 11 years and more than three trillion observations. Senior space and physics editor Lee Billings joins host Rachel Feltman to review Gaia’sGaia’s Milky Way––mapping mission and the tidal streams, black holes and asteroids the spacecraft identified. Episode Transcript: https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/gaia-spacecraft-stops-data-collection-for-milky-way-map/ Recommended reading: New Maps of Milky Way Are Biggest and Best Yet https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gaias-multi-billion-star-map-of-the-milky-way-keeps-getting-better/ Astronomers Discover Milky Way’’s ‘‘Sleeping Giant’’ Black Hole Shockingly Close to Earth https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/milky-way-sleeping-giant-black-hole-shockingly-close-to-earth/ E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American: https://www.scientificamerican.com/getsciam/ And sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter: https://www.scientificamerican.com/account/email-preferences/ Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg, Naeem Amarsy and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest Lee Billings. Our show is edited by Madison Goldberg with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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