Description
The Gaia mission has revolutionised astronomy in recent years. However, much more can be achieved by harnessing Near InfraRed (NIR) light using new state-of-the-art detectors to peer through the dust and gas to reveal the hidden regions of the Galaxy. A new all-sky NIR astrometric mission will expand and improve on the science of Gaia using basic astrometry. NIR astrometry is crucial for penetrating obscured regions and for observing intrinsically red objects that are otherwise difficult to detect. The new mission is aimed at surveying at least 12 billion stars in the Galaxy, revealing important new regions obscured by interstellar gas and dust while also significantly improving on the accuracy of the previous results from Gaia. The new mission would not launch until around 2045-2050 but work on developing the concept has already begun. This mission promises to again revolutionise our understanding of the dynamics of our Galaxy, offering new insights into its hidden ecosystems.
This year, ESA's governing body - the Council of Ministers, will hold a meeting where ESA's budget for the coming years will be decided. ESA will then start making detailed plans for future space missions to fulfil the science themes outlined in Voyage 2050. We must now prepare to submit our proposal for a future L-class mission and begin developing a GaiaNIR consortium. The new consortium will initially be focused on preparing the proposal but will eventually evolve into a structure similar for Gaia’s DPAC. I will briefly outline our plans for this.
