In this thesis I will present Gaia, an ESA mission which is observing stars and Solar System objects. In this work I am mostly concerned with asteroid observations. All of Gaia data is available online publicly on the ESA website, Gaia catalogue, data release 2. I would also like to present a slightly more technical view of the satellite itself beside the presentation of the mission alone. I am also presenting what asteroids are, where they can be found and how we classify them. In addition, I shortly review the Asteroid and the Kuiper belts. I have also made calculations of a specific orbit and motion of the asteroid 8 Flora. Since we can't talk about this without knowing what orbits are and how we represent them, will I present the reader with the Kepler's 6 orbital elements. Specific calculation of the orbit is presented in a way to let the reader understand how it would look like from Earth (equatorial plane), so there is no need for extra transformations between the ecliptic and equatorial planes. All of the equations used are simplified and explained in a manner so that the reader does not need advanced knowledge to understand them. At the end there is also a comparison of Gaia results with a planetary program called Stellarium, which calculates data upon finding the correct object but with measurements prior to the Gaia mission.
|