Galaxy mappers will have to hold tight - technical troubles mean that the first images from the Gaia space telescope won't be released until mid-2016, nine months later than planned. Launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) in 2013, Gaia will catalogue a billion stars in our galaxy. But when researchers took test images earlier this year, they noticed three issues: more sunlight than anticipated is entering the telescope, more ice than predicted is accumulating on its mirrors, and the telescope itself is expanding and contracting more than expected because of thermal variations.
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