Gaia Mission

Gaia is a retired ESA space observatory launched in 2013 to measure the positions, distances and motions of stars with great precision. It monitored each target about 70 times during its five-year nominal mission and about as many again in its extension.

ESA switched it off on 27 March 2025 after more than a decade. Its data are being processed into the largest and most precise 3D catalogue of the sky, about a billion objects.