My way through the Milky Way – from a dusty subject to an exciting part of the universe

Opinion by Sofia Feltzing, Professor of Astronomy, Lund University 2013 Slowly, humanity has built up a picture of the world around us. Through several revolutionary discoveries we have come to learn that the Earth is not the centre of the universe, nor is the Sun. We have learnt that the...

The Gaia Satellite

Gaia’s mission is to chart a three-dimensional map of our galaxy, the Milky Way. In this task astronomers hope to reveal the composition, formation and evolution of the Galaxy. Gaia will produce a stereoscopic and kinematic census of about one billion stars in our galaxy and throughout the Local Group....