‘Gaia, de casa nostra a l’univers’
Catalan science takes centre stage on Wednesday 6 May at 6.30 p.m. with the premiere of the documentary Gaia: de casa nostra a l’univers in the main auditorium at CosmoCaixa. The documentary, produced by Big Van Ciencia with the support of a grant from the Catalan Foundation for Research and Innovation (FCRI), highlights Catalonia’s key role in one of the most ambitious scientific missions in recent history: the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Gaia mission.
Catalan science takes centre stage on Wednesday 6 May at 6.30 p.m. with the premiere of the documentary Gaia: de casa nostra a l’univers in the main auditorium at CosmoCaixa. The documentary, produced by Big Van Ciencia with the support of a grant from the Catalan Foundation for Research and Innovation (FCRI), highlights Catalonia’s key role in one of the most ambitious scientific missions in recent history: the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Gaia mission.
Thanks to Gaia, humanity has been able to map nearly two billion stars in the Milky Way with unprecedented accuracy. A key part of this success has taken shape in Catalonia, with teams from the University of Barcelona (UB), the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC) and the Institute of Cosmos Sciences (ICCUB) leading world-class scientific contributions.
The event will be attended by Teresa Sanchis, director-general for Research at the Government of Catalonia; Helena González, director of Big Van Ciencia; Xavier Luri, professor at the Department of Quantum Physics and Astrophysics of the UB, director of the IEEC and principal investigator for Gaia in Spain; Mercè Pallàs, special assistant for coordination with research institutes at the UB; Maria Terrades, director of the Barcelona Science Park; and Miquel Gómez, director of the FCRI.
The event will combine institutional presentations, a 335-minute screening of the documentary and a science communication show with humour and improvisation by Big Van Ciencia, allowing the audience to interact live with researchers from the Gaia mission.
The voice of Catalan science
With over 16,000 scientific publications based on its data, Gaia has become a key tool for understanding the structure, origin and evolution of the Milky Way. This documentary brings this scientific revolution to the general public, adopting an accessible and human approach with touches of humour.
A team of astronomers and engineers from the UB’s Department of Quantum Physics and Astrophysics, the ICCUB and the IEEC has worked on the Gaia mission — ESA’s most ambitious project to study the history and structure of the Milky Way — from the very beginning, under the professor’s initial leadership. Launched in 2013, the Gaia satellite has transformed our understanding of the cosmos through detailed stellar mapping of the positions, distances, movements and properties of nearly two billion stars and other celestial objects.
Professor Xavier Luri notes that “the UB’s Gaia team has been working on the mission since the start, around 1997”. “Since then, it has been involved in every stage, from defining the scientific case and the design to data processing and scientific analysis,” he continues. “Now, although Gaia is finishing its observations, there are still several years of work ahead to fully process all the data collected and publish two additional data releases (DR4 and DR5),” concludes the researcher.
Documentary Gaia: de casa nostra a l’univers has been published at the following link.
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