Charting The Milky Way Galaxy

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Science@ESA Vodcast (Episode 6, Part 1): Charting the Milky Way - Mapping the Galaxy - from Hipparcos to Gaia.

In this sixth episode of the Science@ESA vodcast series Rebecca Barnes discovers the motions of the stars, learns how astronomers measure their distances and looks at the new European mission that will really get to grips with our place in the Universe.

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ESA Hipparcos Mission

Hipparcos, a European mission, pinpointed the positions of more than one hundred thousand stars to high precision, and more than one million stars to lesser precision. Hipparcos turned slowly on its axis and repeatedly scanned right around the sky at different angles. It measured angles between widely separated stars, and recorded their brightness, which were often variable from one visit to the next. Each star selected for study was visited about 100 times over four years.

• http://www.esa.int/esaSC/120366_index_0_m.html
• http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/area/index.cfm?fareaid=20

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ESA Gaia Mission

Gaia is a mission that will conduct a census of one thousand million stars in our Galaxy. It will monitor each of its target stars about 70 times over a five-year period, precisely charting their positions, distances, movements, and changes in brightness. It is expected to discover hundreds of thousands of new celestial objects, such as extra-solar planets and failed stars called brown dwarfs. Within our own Solar System, Gaia should also identify tens of thousands of asteroids.

Additional scientific benefits include detection and characterisation of tens of thousands of extra-solar planetary systems, a comprehensive survey of objects ranging from huge numbers of minor bodies in our Solar System, through galaxies in the nearby Universe, to about 500 000 distant quasars. It will also provide stringent new tests of Albert Einsteins general relativity theory.

• http://www.esa.int/esaSC/120377_index_0_m.html
• http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/area/index.cfm?fareaid=26
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Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• milky
• way
• galaxies
• charting
• mapping
• esa
• nasa
• hipparcos
• gaia
• stars
• motions
• astronomers
• measure
• distances
• missions
• universe
• european
• space
• agency
• telescopes
• positions
• movements
• brightness
• celestial
• objects
• extra-solar
• planets
• brown
• dwarfs
• planetary
• solar
• systems
• asteroids

[TheFifthApes]

@captainquirk24 Atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive positions. One deals with belief, the other with knowledge. You can simultaneously not know something, and not believe it. Do you believe in Big Foot? Do you know that Big Foot is not real? These are 2 very different questions.

Do you know there's no god? No? - You're agnostic.

Do you believe there is a god? No? - You're an atheist too!

[TheFifthApes]

@captainquirk24 Actually since the discovery of Dark Energy it appear the universe may expand indefinitely into a 'Heat Death' scenario, but we need to understand what Dark Energy is before we can say for sure.

[SovereignBeing]

gnostic = knowledge,

a gnostic is the opposite.. ignorant..

[directorygod]

Cool Video, Thanks for shared

[20dollarchill]

justin bieber is actually kinda smart

[ricois3]

What?? You find her cute?!? :O

[YTviewerRIC]

The music is annoying. Why do they choose it?

[david25luvit]

JayBomb999....don't be a jerk! She's a scientist despite her beautiful appearance. Her brief history lesson was interesting and her obvious love of the stars is quite apparent. I give her two thumbs up! (as a scientist and a fellow human being)

[rameshtavare]

If the Sun is moving around the center of milky way, then we must know accident spots along it's way based upon time last known accident happened. I belive the path the Sun traces is not at all safe and In addition to it Sun has no brakes.

[AtheistBelgium]

thanx, nice video, learned some new things here!

[Cioper]

I have no idea what was said in majority of this video, becouse this girl was distracting me. ;)

[gbenifits1968]

boobiesss...yum yum!!