GAIA - Unravelling the origin and evolution of our Galaxy

GAIA was the Greek goddess of Earth worshipped as the universal mother who had created the Universe. More recently her name was taken by James Loveloc k for his theory on the interdependency of the Earth's atmosphere and biolo gical organisms. Now it is the name given to an ambitious project to unrave l the structure, origin and evolution of our Galaxy. GAIA is a Cornerstone candidate in ESA's Scientific Programme, proposed to carry out a stereoscop ic survey of more than a billion stars - a detailed census of around 1 perc ent of the stellar content of our Galaxy. It will also detect upwards of 20 000 extra-solar planets, provide a comprehensive Solar System census of as teroids, and undertake tests of General Relativity with unprecedented accur acy. The extensive harvest from this revolutionary undertaking is expected to have enormous scientific implications.