Measuring the Cosmos with Gaia
Dr. Coryn Bailer-Jones (MPIA, Heidelberg)

The Gaia satellite, launch in December 2013, is now well into its five year mission to measure the positions, distances, and velocities of over a billion stars in the Galaxy. Its main scientific goal is to map the phase space structure of the stellar component of our Galaxy through astrometry. But it will also discover near-earth asteroids, exoplanets, and perform tests of General Relativity, to name just a few of the expected results. I will outline the measurement approach, the satellite, and its mission, and what we hope to learn from the huge amounts of data we are now gathering.