What’s Phil pondering? He’s fascinated by the wealth of information about our residence galaxy, the Milky Way, offered by ESA’s GAIA space observatory.
Phil Plait – the Unhealthy Astronomer, science blogger, dork and Crash Course Astronomy man – will be part of EarthSky’s Deborah Byrd LIVE starting at 12:15 p.m. central (17:15 UTC) on Monday, August 12. He’ll be speaking concerning the mighty GAIA space observatory.
Launched in 2013 by the European Area Company, GAIA’s mission is to scan the sky repeatedly. It has noticed every of its focused BILLION objects in our Milky Way galaxy, again and again. It has gathered phenomenal knowledge on the motions – and exact distances – of stars and different objects in our Milky Way. So, for instance, we knew that our sun and all the celebs within the Milky Way are shifting constantly in nice orderly lots across the heart of our galaxy. However, now, due to GAIA, we now have exact knowledge on precisely HOW they’re shifting. For astronomers, the insights made doable by this knowledge are nothing wanting revolutionary. Phil stated:
I need to speak about distances to stars, their motions, and the way that’s been used to search out stellar streams (cannibalized galaxies!), black holes in binary methods, black holes in globular clusters, and one among my favourite matters, whether the star Albireo is a binary or not).
There’s different stuff too, like displaying that M73 is not an actual cluster, and how GAIA has detected planets. GAIA may even inform us which stars have come close to the sun over time.
Tons of stuff to say about GAIA!
Phil has written three books: Bad Astronomy (2002), Death from the Skies!, and Under Alien Skies: A Sightseer’s Guide to the Universe (2023).
Be part of us! And listen to Phil inform us about a few of GAIA’s most wonderful discoveries.
Backside line: What’s Phil pondering? Be part of Phil Plait, aka The Unhealthy Astronomer, starting at 12:15 p.m. central (17:15 UTC) on Monday, August 12 … to listen to Phil speak concerning the mighty GAIA space observatory.
