Dear MEL School’s Topic Readers,
Gaia space telescope's billion pixel camera
to map Milky Way.
How many stars can we see in the night sky?
How many stars are there in the universe?
Astronomers believe there are no fewer than
100 billion just in our galaxy, which is just a fraction of the Milky Way.
The Gaia space telescope equipped with a billion-pixel
camera was launched into space by European Space Agency (ESA). The telescope is
expected to help measure distances to those billions stars in order to build a
three-dimensional picture of our galaxy. It is also expected to find more
exoplanets on top of already-identified 167 of them.
As the estimated cost for this five-year
project is a billion dollars, does it mean they are going to spend $1 or less
to map a star?
Enjoy reading and leaning about this bold
mission.
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