Free Astronomy Magazine July-August 2019

40 JULY-AUGUST 2019 SPACE CHRONICLES This catalogue has enabled trans- formational studies in many fields of astronomy, addressing the structure, origin and evolution the Milky Way and generating more G a i a , oper- ated by the European Space Agency (ESA), surveys the sky from orbit to create the largest, most precise, three-dimen- sional map of our Galaxy. One year ago, the Gaia mission produced its much-awaited second data release, which included high-precision meas- urements — positions, distance and proper motions — of more than one billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy. Pinpointing Gaia to map the Milky Way by ESO