European spacecraft Gaia detected earthquakes and “read the DNA” of thousands of stars in our galaxy

The Gaia robotic ship of the European Space Agency (ESA) recorded thousands of astronomical earthquakes, but also the so-called “stellar DNA”, ie the chemical composition of of stars in the galaxy us.

This is the third major publication of data from the European mission, which was launched in 2013. The new data provides a wealth of data on the chemical composition of stars, temperature, speed, color, mass and motion.

ESA Director-General Joseph Asbacher has announced that the new spectroscopic and other data come from about 1.8 billion starsalmost 1% of the total stars of our galaxy, which will better illuminate the structure and evolution of our galaxy over the course of billions of years.

One of the most unexpected discoveries was that Gaia, although not made for it, was able to detect earthquakes in the stars, that is, catastrophic tsunami-like movements on their surface, as the stars change shape, shrink or expand. The stellar vibrations push the stellar gases in upward and downward motions, changing the brightness of the stars periodically. These earthquakes allow scientists to learn more about what is happening inside the stars.

Gaia, which weighs two tons at a constant distance from Earth and orbits the Sun, makes successive measurements of the same stars from slightly different angles, gradually creating the most accurate and complete multidimensional “map” of the galaxy us to date. It has a camera with a resolution of one billion pixels, the largest that has been sent into space and which has over 100 electronic sensors.

Among other things, new observations show that some stars in our galaxy are made up of primary materials, while others, such as our Sun, are made up of materials that have been enriched over time. Stars closest to the galactic center are richer in minerals than stars on the galaxy’s edge. Gaia has also identified stars that have entered our galaxy from other galaxies, so they have a different chemical composition. He has also located about 800,000 double star systems so far, which look like a star from afar, but are actually two. In addition, it revealed the chemical composition of about 60,000 asteroids in our solar system, compared to only 4,500 known so far.

Gaia’s mission is expected to continue by 2024 or 2025at which point the fuel will be depleted.