{"id":208147,"date":"2013-06-24T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-06-24T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"9a898cc2b7be1b93bb67461c1944212d"},"modified":"2013-06-24T18:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-06-24T22:00:00","slug":"gaia-scanning-the-sky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=208147","title":{"rendered":"Gaia scanning the sky"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.esa.int\/var\/esa\/storage\/images\/esa_multimedia\/videos\/2013\/06\/gaia_scanning_the_sky\/12911767-2-eng-GB\/Gaia_scanning_the_sky_small.jpg\" width=\"170\" height=\"96\" align=\"left\" hspace=\"8\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This animation shows the Gaia spacecraft spinning in space scanning the sky. <br \/>\nGaia\u2019s mission relies on the systematic and repeating observation of star positions in two fields of view. As the detectors repeatedly measure the position of each celestial object, they will detect any changes in the object\u2019s motion through space. <br \/>\nTo achieve its mission the spacecraft is spinning slowly, sweeping its two telescopes across the entire celestial sphere to make four complete rotations per day. <br \/>\nGaia\u2019s telescopes point at two different portions of the sky, separated by a constant 106.5\u00b0. Therefore, objects arrive in the second field of view 106.5 minutes after they are observed in the first. <br \/>\nMeanwhile its spin axis precesses around the Sun with a period of about 63 days, allowing different parts of the sky to be scanned. This scanning strategy builds up an interlocking grid of positions, providing absolute \u2013 rather than relative \u2013 values of the stellar positions and motions. <br \/>The spacecraft spin axis makes an angle of 45\u00b0 with the Sun direction, ensuring that the payload is shaded from the Sun, but that the solar arrays can still produce electricity efficiently.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.esa.int\/var\/esa\/storage\/images\/esa_multimedia\/videos\/2013\/06\/gaia_scanning_the_sky\/12911767-2-eng-GB\/Gaia_scanning_the_sky_small.jpg\" width=\"170\" height=\"96\" align=\"left\" hspace=\"8\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This animation shows the Gaia spacecraft spinning in space scanning the sky. <br \/>\nGaia\u2019s mission relies on the systematic and repeating observation of star positions in two fields of view. As the detectors repeatedly measure the position of each celestial object, they will detect any changes in the object\u2019s motion through space. <br \/>\nTo achieve its mission the spacecraft is spinning slowly, sweeping its two telescopes across the entire celestial sphere to make four complete rotations per day. <br \/>\nGaia\u2019s telescopes point at two different portions of the sky, separated by a constant 106.5\u00b0. Therefore, objects arrive in the second field of view 106.5 minutes after they are observed in the first. <br \/>\nMeanwhile its spin axis precesses around the Sun with a period of about 63 days, allowing different parts of the sky to be scanned. This scanning strategy builds up an interlocking grid of positions, providing absolute \u2013 rather than relative \u2013 values of the stellar positions and motions. <br \/>The spacecraft spin axis makes an angle of 45\u00b0 with the Sun direction, ensuring that the payload is shaded from the Sun, but that the solar arrays can still produce electricity efficiently.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":615444,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-208147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-multimedia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=208147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/615444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=208147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=208147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=208147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}