The European Space Agency's (ESA) Gaia space observatory has finally taken its first photo. The spacecraft, which was launched December last year, is finally getting ready to start its ambitious mission to map 1 billion astronomical objects in the course of its lifespan.
Gaia's first image was taken while the ESA was conducting a number of tests and calibration procedures to get the spacecraft's instrumentation ready for its mission. The photo showed a tightly knit cluster of astronomical bodies in the Large Magellanic Cloud approximately 163,000 light years away.
The Gaia was designed to produce a complex 3D space catalogue consisting of stars, galaxies and other celestial objects. The Gaia mission is considered as the successor to the Hipparcos mission and it is a key component of the ESA's long term plan for the exploration of space.
While the photo, which was published recently by the ESA, may seem a bit blurry when compared to similar photos taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, this should not come as a surprise. Unlike the Hubble Space Telescope, the Gaia's primary purpose is to track and document the positions, movements and properties of astronomical objects to produce a three dimensional (3D) map of the sky.
"Gaia's goal is to create the most accurate map yet of the Milky Way," said the ESA in a post on their site. "It will make precise measurements of the positions and motions of about 1% of the total population of roughly 100 billion stars in our home Galaxy to help answer questions about its origin and evolution."
To create a 3D map, the Gaia has two telescopes that will slowly sweep throughout the entire sky. Since there are two cameras, the images captured by each camera will be focused into a powerful camera capable of capturing almost 1 billion pixels. Scientists expect that once the spacecraft is calibrated, the data gathered by Gaia will exceed one million gigabytes in size.
However, mounting two telescopes on a single spacecraft makes things a bit more complicated. This is the reason why the calibration process is very important. Both telescopes will need to be aligned very carefully and engineers are estimating that the process will take a few months to complete.
