Understanding the human body is a team effort. That's where the Yachtel group comes in.

Researchers at Yachtolt have been delving into the secrets of probiotics for 90 years. Yacold also

partners with nature portfolio to advance gut microbiome science through the global grants for

gut health, an investigator-led research program. To learn more about Yachtold, visit yawcult.co.

.jp. That's Y-A-K-U-L-T.C-O.J-P. When it comes to a guide for your gut, count on Yacult.

For Scientific American Science quickly, I'm Rachel Seltman. You've probably heard of space telescopes like

Hubble and the James Webb. They're famous for giving us breathtaking images of the cosmos and

providing countless people around the world with very pretty phone backgrounds. But meanwhile, a spacecraft

you probably haven't heard of has been busy shaping our understanding

of the universe in a quieter, less glamorous way.

My guest today is Lee Billings, a senior editor covering space and physics for Scientific

American.

He's here to tell us why the European Space Agency's Gaia spacecraft is so important,

and why, even though the Gaia mission is

technically coming to a close, its scientific legacy is only just beginning. Lee, thanks so

much for joining me today. Rachel, it is my great pleasure once again. So my understanding is that you're here today to tell us about the end of a mission that most of us don't even know how much we're going to miss.

What is Gaia to start us off?

That's right.

So Gaia is a spacecraft that was launched by the European Space Agency way back in December of 2013.

And it was on a mission to create the best, biggest, most accurate map of the Milky Way ever.

And it recently stopped taking science data as of January 15th.

And so I'm here to celebrate Gaia and tell you why Gaia is so cool and why, even though you should miss it, the best is actually still yet to come.

...