Gaia: Here Comes the Sun
What would it look like to return home from outside our galaxy? Although designed to answer greater questions , data from ESA's robotic Gaia mission is helping to provide a uniquely modern perspective on humanity's place in the universe. Gaia orbits the Sun near the Earth and resolves stars' positions so precisely that it can determine a slight shift from its changing vantage point over the course of a year, a shift that is proportionately smaller for more distant stars -- and so determines distance . In the first sequence of the video , an illustration of the Milky Way is shown that soon resolves into a three-dimensional visualization of Gaia star data . A few notable stars are labelled with their common names , while others stars are labelled with numbers from a Gaia catalog . Eventually, the viewer arrives in our stellar neighborhood where many stars were tracked by Gaia, and soon at our home star Sol, the Sun . At the video's end, the reflective glow of Sol's third planet becomes visible: Earth .