Gaia telescope’s new map of the Milky Way will let us rewind time

The European Space Agency has released a new tranche of data from its Gaia space observatory, and it could help us rewind the path of stars to see the history of the Milky Way

By Alex Wilkins

Our map of the Milky Way has been upgraded and it now lets us rewind the paths of stars to look back in time. The data set that enables this, released by the European Space Agency (ESA)’s Gaia space telescope, includes the detailed chemical make-up and speeds of almost 2 billion stars.

From its vantage point 1.5 million kilometres from Earth, Gaia has been measuring already known stars and seeking new ones since its launch in 2013. The first data release, published in 2016, contained information on the brightness and positions of 1.1 billion stars, and a second release …