The Nissan Motor Company, builders of the new Navara Dark Sky concept truck, has chosen Planewave as the telescope to be used in the groundbreaking Gaia program, in conjunction with the European Space Agency (ESA). The vehicle, a pick-up-and-trailer combination, carries the Planewave telescope to remote areas far from the light pollution of major cities, to perform detailed observations of the sky. This unique collaboration between the automaker and the ESA highlights the critical role of precision astronomical instruments such as those offered by Planewave, in advancing our understanding of the heavens. “In order to perform the Gaia mission,” says ESA’s Fred Jansen in Nissan’s promotional video, “we need to go to very remote places.”
The full Gaia project, which has been underway since its solar-orbiting probe left Earth in 2013, seeks to create a three-dimensional map of the galaxy, from its vantage point a million miles from our planet. The Navara Dark Sky system, which features a special, refrigerated housing for the telescope while in transit to maintain optimal observing temperatures, complements the probe by utilizing the 16-inch Planewave telescope to supplement the information generated by the spacecraft. “Telescopes like the one in the trailer are needed in studies of planets and stars in our galaxy,” Jansen notes, “allowing Earth-based follow-up campaigns enabled by the Gaia data.”
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