What’s Phil thinking? He’s thinking about the wealth of knowledge about our home galaxy, the Milky Way, provided by ESA’s GAIA space observatory.

Phil Plait – the Bad Astronomer, science blogger, dork and Crash Course Astronomy guy – will join EarthSky’s Deborah Byrd LIVE beginning at 12:15 p.m. central (17:15 UTC) on Monday, August 12. He’ll be talking about the mighty GAIA space observatory.

Launched in 2013 by the European Space Agency, GAIA’s mission is to scan the sky repeatedly. It has observed each of its targeted BILLION objects in our Milky Way galaxy, over and over again. It has gathered phenomenal data on the motions – and precise distances – of stars and other objects in our Milky Way. So, for example, we knew that our sun and all the stars in the Milky Way are moving continuously in great orderly masses around the center of our galaxy. But, now, thanks to GAIA, we have precise data on exactly HOW they are moving. For astronomers, the insights made possible by this data are nothing short of revolutionary. Phil said:

I want to talk about distances to stars, their motions, and how that’s been used to find stellar streams (cannibalized galaxies!), black holes in binary systems, black holes in globular clusters, and one of my favorite topics, whether the star Albireo is a binary or not).

There’s other stuff too, like showing that M73 is not an actual cluster, and how GAIA has detected planets. GAIA can even tell us which stars have come close to the sun over time.

Tons of stuff to say about GAIA! 🙂

Phil has written three books: Bad Astronomy (2002), Death from the Skies!, and Under Alien Skies: A Sightseer’s Guide to the Universe (2023).

Join us! And hear Phil tell us about some of GAIA’s most amazing discoveries.

Bottom line: What’s Phil thinking? Join Phil Plait, aka The Bad Astronomer, beginning at 12:15 p.m. central (17:15 UTC) on Monday, August 12 … to hear Phil talk about the mighty GAIA space observatory.