Skip to ContentSkip to Navigation
About us Latest news News News articles

Amina Helmi and her team involved again in most recent Data Release from Gaia-mission

13 June 2022

The European Space Agency (ESA) published the third data release of the Gaia mission today. The Gaia satellite creates the most accurate and complete multidimensional map of the Milky Way and with today’s release, the data will be made publicly available to everyone. Amina Helmi, professor at the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute and scientific director of NOVA, has thoroughly inspected the data over the past year with sophisticated statistical techniques to validate its quality for scientific use.

The third and newest dataset from the Gaia mission contains new and improved details of nearly two billion objects in our galaxy. With data from the Gaia mission, astronomers from around the world can reconstruct the past and future evolution of our own galaxy over billions of years and better understand the life cycle of stars and our place in the universe.

Prof. Amina Helmi
Prof. Amina Helmi

Helmi long involved with Gaia

Helmi has been involved with Gaia for about twenty years. She contributed to the design of the mission before it was approved by the ESA in 2000 and then continued to be involved in the construction of the satellite, which was finally launched in 2013. Now, together with a few other astronomers, she has the unique position of being able to check the dataset for quality before it was published worldwide.

Research Helmi

Helmi conducts research on how the Milky Way got its current shape. From the orbits of stars, she can deduce where they come from and which stars come from the same 'nursery room'. Stars, according to astronomers, form in groups from gigantic dust clouds, and some of the oldest stars were likely born elsewhere, in other galaxies. Helmi has already won many prizes, including the prestigious Spinoza Prize in 2019.

Previous news about Helmi and Gaia's datasets:

Last modified:01 August 2022 4.58 p.m.
View this page in: Nederlands

More news

  • 06 June 2023

    Three FSE researchers receive an NWO XS grant

    With the XS grants, NWO strives to encourage curiosity-driven and bold research involving a quick analysis of a promising idea. A special aspect is that the applicants themselves assess the other applications.

  • 05 June 2023

    Rehabilitation through virtual reality games

    Digital Health Care Technologies, also known as eHealth, could drastically change the field of healthcare. The combination of Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, wearables, telehealth, telemonitoring, and Artificial Intelligence is opening new...

  • 30 May 2023

    Godwit migration is learned rather than innate

    The timing, route, and destination for godwit migration is learned rather than innate. Researchers at the University of Groningen discovered this in a daring experiment, which has been published in the latest issue of the journal Current Biology.