Check out Dr Maggie Lieu's latest video, on Gaia's legacy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5jIDVpVGyE
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When the season's passed
But the snow won't go away
Blame Mother Nature
#Haiku #OneHaikuADay #WritersCollective #writingcommunity #BackToHaiku #Spring #Snow #Seasons #Weather #MotherNature #Gaia
April 7, 2025
Gaia, the space observatory, won’t shut down easily now that its mission is over. Shades of Star Trek—TOS episode “The Changling,” “Star Trek: The Motion Picture.” You knew this would be a problem! 
@books @bookstodon @religion #ChristianSciFi #ProfessorK #space #sciencefiction #AI #StarTrek #Gaia #amwritingsf #secretscifinetwork
Futurism · Scientists Tried to Kill Spacecraft But It Was So Tough That It Refused to Die
A 5-minute summary video on the 11-year observational legacy of the Gaia telescope, as it ends its observational life and goes into passive mode. There are still two large data releases to come.
#DLR:
"
Ende einer Ära – Wissenschaftssatellit Gaia wird abgeschaltet
"
"Der Wissenschaftssatellit Gaia wird am 27. März 2025 mit einem letzten Befehl in den endgültigen Ruhezustand versetzt.
Aus den Daten von Gaia wird der bislang größte existierende Sternenkatalog entstehen. .."
27.3.2025
www.dlr.deEnde einer Ära – Wissenschaftssatellit Gaia wird abgeschaltetEine Ära geht zu Ende: Der Wissenschaftssatellit Gaia der Europäischen Weltraumorganisation ESA wird am 27. März 2025 mit einem letzten Befehl in den endgültigen Ruhezustand versetzt. Nach mehr als zehn Jahren präziser Himmelsvermessung ist sein Treibstoff aufgebraucht. Daher wurde er in einen stabilen Orbit um die Sonne überführt, sodass er das Erde-Mond-System in den nächsten 100 Jahren nicht wieder erreicht. Die Projektleitung von Gaia ist in Deutschland angesiedelt. Die deutschen Beiträge zur Mission werden von der Deutschen Raumfahrtagentur im Deutschen Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR) im Auftrag des Bundesministeriums für Wirtschaft und Klimaschutz (BMWK) koordiniert.
To further mark the retirement of the ESA's amazingly successful #Gaia Milky Way surveyor spacecraft yesterday, some pictures taken of it during my visit to EADS Astrium in Toulouse on 3 May 2013, 6.5 months before launch.
1. Me in front of the large silicon carbide torus with its two large rectangular telescope primary mirrors;
2. The torus from below;
3. The huge focal plane with its 106 CCD detectors;
4. The large "top hat" that covers it all.
Some memorabilia from yesterday’s event at ESOC as the ESA #Gaia spacecraft was deactivated after running out of propellant & moved off L2 into an Earth-trailing solar orbit.
One of these objects might last until the Sun turns into red giant five billion years from now; the other will be lucky to last the weekend 
Thanks to my ESA colleagues for the former & the fine folk at Oedipus Brewing in Amsterdam for the latter 
Names of >1500 people participated in #Gaia were uploaded to onboard memory before final shutdown. Proud to be in the list :)
The #European #Space Agency #ESA has powered down its #Gaia spacecraft after more than a decade spent gathering data that are now being used to unravel the secrets of our home galaxy. On 27 March 2025, Gaia’s control team at ESA’s European Space Operations Centre carefully switched off the spacecraft’s subsystems and sent it into a ‘retirement orbit’ around the Sun. #SpaceScience #Astronomy #Science https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Operations/Farewell_Gaia!_Spacecraft_operations_come_to_an_end
#Gaia a été officiellement complètement éteint ce mardi. La sonde s'éloigne désormais du point de Lagrange 2 afin d'éviter toute interférence avec les missions actuelles ou futures.
Charlie, la mascotte de la mission
https://youtube.com/shorts/UmuvxKX_RGM?feature=shared
Fittingly the last talk of today’s celebration & wake for the Gaia spacecraft – Anthony Brown of the Sterrewacht Leiden, chair of the Data Processing & Analysis Consortium, presenting some of the science highlights from the mission (so far).
I’ve read a lot of these papers & have presented many the committees, but it always amazes me just how broad & revolutionary the science is, including but far beyond the Milky Way archaeology work
Continued thread
Farewell message by Ronald Drimmel -
“Two is better than one,” someone said,
so two telescopes you were given.
“Two is better than one,” you replied,
so two billion stars you gifted.
Ten years (and more!) you danced around the Sun
but always stayed on station.
Duty is done. It’s time to be untethered,
to wander free beneath those stars,
no further measures to be taken.
You’ll hear no more from me, nor we from you,
but you’ll not easily be forgotten.
...
Today, Gaia has been ejected from its Lissajous orbit around L2 into a heliocentric orbit. The spacecraft has ended its sky-scanning phase after more than 10 years, and has been switched off. We'll see it again close to Earth in 2039. Farewell, #Gaia!
Here’s the moment that we lost radio contact with Gaia today 
The memories of the same happening here at the end of the Rosetta mission in 2016 are strong 
A sad day, but the science continues
Ad astra, Gaia
Alors que le télescope spatial européen #Gaia est éteint définitivement ce 27 mars, retour sur l'une de ses dernières découvertes : une Super-Jupiter et une naine brune.
https://reves-d-espace.com/nouvelles-decouvertes-pour-le-telescope-europeen-gaia-super-jupiter-et-naine-brune/
