ESOcast 200 Light: ESO helps map the Galaxy

The Gaia spacecraft, operated by the European Space Agency (ESA), surveys the sky from Earth orbit to create the largest, most precise, three-dimensional map of our Galaxy ever. Observations from ESO’s VLT Survey Telescope (VST), have captured Gaia in motion as a faint series of dots trailing across the night sky. These observations were taken as part of an ongoing collaborative effort to measure Gaia’s orbit and improve the accuracy of its unprecedented star map.

The video is available in 4K UHD.

The ESOcast Light is a series of short videos bringing you the wonders of the Universe in bite-sized pieces. The ESOcast Light episodes will not be replacing the standard, longer ESOcasts, but complement them with current astronomy news and images in ESO press releases.