GAIA

Eye candy of the galactic kind. :)

It’s here! The third and largest data release (DR3) from the ESA’s Gaia Observatory has officially been made public. As promised, the DR3 contains new and improved details for almost two billion stars in our galaxy, including the chemical compositions, temperatures, colors, masses, ages, and the velocities at which stars move. The release coincided with a virtual press event hosted by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC) on June 13th, which featured ESA officials and guest speakers who addressed the significance of the new data.

Much of this information consists of newly released spectroscopy data, a technique in which starlight is split into the color spectrum and analyzed to determine how it is being shifted. This technique is known as radial velocity (aka. Doppler Spectroscopy), where light is shifted towards the red or blue end of the spectrum (i.e., redshift and blueshift) based on whether the object is moving towards or away from Earth (respectively). Astrophysicists use this technique to determine how a star is moving relative to our own and also for the sake of detecting exoplanets.

How cool is that? :)