Satellite damaged by space particle 'smaller than a grain of sand' and historic solar storm
Launched in 2013, the Milky Way "billion-star surveyor" called Gaia was designed to operate for up to six years in space. It has nearly doubled that life expectancy in harsh conditions, European Space Agency scientists said.
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Astronomers have released a massive survey of the galactic plane of the Milky Way.
Even big spacecraft on a mission to map the stars have to deal with the hazards of space.
According to the European Space Agency, the Milky Way "billion-star surveyor" satellite called Gaia was struck by a high-speed micrometeoroid that was "smaller than a grain of sand" in April before being hit by the strongest solar storm in 20 years – the same storm that led to brilliant auroras on Earth in May. This affected the craft's ability to carry out the precise measurements for which it is famous.
Launched in December 2013, Gaia is located about 932,000 miles from Earth.
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Gaia mapping the stars of the Milky Way.
(ESA/ATG medialab; background: ESO/S. Brunier)
While millions of these particles burn up in Earth’s atmosphere daily, impacts like these to satellites this far away from our planet are expected. The spacecraft was designed to withstand them, the ESA noted, but the micrometeoroid struck Gaia at just the wrong angle and damaged the spacecraft’s protective cover.
This impact created a small gap through which stray sunlight, about one billionth the intensity of direct sunlight on Earth, could disrupt Gaia's highly sensitive sensors, according to scientists.
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ESA's Malargüe deep space ground station.
(Filippo Concaro / ESA)
After the hit, a burst of energetic particles from May's solar storm likely caused an electronic failure. This led to Gaia recording thousands of false detections and sending back so much data that it overwhelmed systems on Earth.
The ESA said it is possible that the storm was the final straw for this piece of the spacecraft’s aging hardware.
Ten years ago, ESA’s billion star-mapping satellite Gaia launched. Since then, Gaia has been scanning the sky and gathering an enormous amount of data on the positions and motions of 1.8 billion stars, enabling numerous discoveries about the history of our galaxy.
(ESA)
Scientists and engineers have since been able to make adjustments to the instruments to cut back on the number of false detections, and the satellite has resumed normal operations.
Gaia was designed to spend up to six years in space but has survived almost twice as long under harsh conditions, the ESA said.