Gaia Space Mission and Starquakes

The Gaia Space Observatory of European Space Agency recently detected several “starquakes”, which were similar to tsunami-like earthquakes.

Key Points

• Gaia Space Mission was launched in 2013. It studies the Milky Way.
• The mission has created a map of galaxy.
• It has revealed new information regarding stars and their chemical composition including the colour, temperature, age, and brightness level of stars.
• Gaia mission further revealed that, largest chemical map of Milky way galaxy coupled to 3D motions from solar neighbourhood to smaller galaxies.

Starquakes Spotted

• Gaia space mission spotted large scale tsunami, called starquakes, which changes the shape of stars.
• Mission has tracked radial oscillations, which is responsible for swelling and shrinking of the stars, while maintaining their shape.
• Starquakes provides a lot of information about stars, and their internal workings.

Startling Revelation

• In a startling revelation, Gaia Space Mission found that some stars in Milky way galaxy are composed of primordial material while others are composed of matter enriched by previous generations of stars.
• Data from the mission released 3 new and improved details regarding the galaxy, like largest catalogue yet of binary stars and thousands of Solar System objects like asteroids and moons of planets.”

What are Starquakes?

According to the European Space agency, starquakes are tiny motions on star surface, which changes the shapes of stars.

About Gaia

Gaia is a space observatory by European Space Agency (ESA). It was launched in 2013. The mission is likely to operate until 2025. It is designed for astrometry, in a bid to measure positions, motions, and distances stars with unprecedented precision. It aims to construct the largest and most precise 3D space catalogue, totalling around 1 billion astronomical objects, mainly stars, comets, planets, asteroids and quasars.

The Milky Way

It is galaxy, which includes our Solar System. The describes its appearance from Earth. The Milky Way appears as a band from Earth, because the disk-shaped structure of galaxy is viewed from within.

Month: Current Affairs - June, 2022

Category: Science & Technology Current Affairs