Gaia's Influence on Astrophysics

Gaia is an ESA astrometric mission to compile an 3d space catalog over a billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy. The Gaia mission will allow the understanding of the universe to deepen by determining the position of celestial bodies accurately. In this research project, I will be reading papers published by scientists associated with ESA to focus on the importance of Gaia. It is expected to discover hundreds of thousands of new celestial objects, such as Extra-Solar planets, brown dwarfs, and asteroids within our own Solar System. The mission will also study about 500,000 distant quasars and will provide stringent new tests of Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. Over the centuries astrometry has greatly contributed to the advance of the knowledge of the Universe. I will be assessing some of the outstanding contributions that Gaia will provide to our knowledge in the field of astrophysics.