Gaia Recovers From Solar Storm and Micrometeoroid Damage

The European Space Agency (ESA)'s Gaia spacecraft has been hit by a micrometeoroid, damaging the spacecraft’s protective cover. The impact consequently created a little gap that allowed stray sunlight to disrupt Gaia’s sensitive sensors. In addition, ESA also reported that a solar storm may have been responsible for damaging one of the spacecraft's charge-coupled devices (CCDs)'s electronics. As a result, the spacecraft began reporting thousands of false star detections.