Welcome to the Gaia Newsletter. The Gaia newsletter will be used to announce updates on the Gaia mission and the Gaia data releases. You were recently added to this mailing list as someone who might be interested to follow our updates. You are free to unsubscribe from this newsletter any time. A link is provided at the bottom. Upcoming Gaia Data Release 2 On wednesday 25 April Gaia will release a catalogue of 1,692,919,135 sources of which all will have position and brightness, and most will have parallax, proper motion and colour information. The release will also contain radial velocities for more than 7 million sources, effective temperatures for more than 160 million sources and other astrophysical parameters for more than 76 milion sources. Data Release 2 will contain as well epoch data (position and brightness) on more than 14,000 asteroids. More detailed information on the exact contents of Gaia Data Release 2 can be found here: https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/dr2 The press event of the release will take place at ILA in Berlin, and a livestream of this event will be available. Many local events are organised at institutes involved in the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis. A webpage pointing to Gaia DR2 resources, information and updates can be found here: https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/data-release-2 The link to the livestream of the press event will be provided on this page once known on 25 April. Maitenance to the Gaia Archive To prepare for the second data release, the Gaia Archive will be taken down for an extended period. Downtime starts 11 April 12:00 and ends when Gaia DR2 is released on 25 April. During this time, downloading the Gaia DR1 data will remain available (through this link: http://cdn.gea.esac.esa.int/Gaia/). Gaia DR1 data is also served from our partner data centres, information on these data centres can be found here: https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/data-access. Gaia DR2 Exploration Lab From 25 to 29 June 2018 a scientific gathering is planned to explore the Gaia DR2 data. This event takes place at ESAC near Madrid (Spain). Are you interested in brainstorming uses of Gaia data in a collaborative way? Registration for this event is still open until 13 April. More information on this event can be found here: https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia-dr2-exploration/home Gaia DR2 Workshop From 18 to 21 June 2018 a workshop on the contents and learning how to access Gaia DR2 is given in Heidelberg (Germany). Registration for this workshop is open now: http://gaia.ari.uni-heidelberg.de/gaia-workshop-2018/ ESLAB #53: The Gaia Universe At ESA ESTEC in Noordwijk (The Netherlands) a conference will be planned to discuss science using Gaia data. This event will take place from 8 to 12 April 2019. More information will follow soon. Latest Gaia stories Gaia public outreach stories can be found here: http://sci.esa.int/gaia/ . More in-depth stories aimed at astronomers can be found here: https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia -Following up on Gaia https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/iow_20180129 -Gaia women in science https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/iow_20180211 -Chasing a stellar flash with assistance from Gaia / Triton observation campaign http://sci.esa.int/gaia/60011-chasing-a-stellar-flash-with-assistance-from-gaia/ https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/iow_20180227 -Gaia status update: safe mode and recovery http://sci.esa.int/gaia/60098-gaia-status-update-safe-mode-and-recovery/ -Gaia’s view of dark interstellar clouds: http://sci.esa.int/gaia/60131-gaia-s-view-of-dark-interstellar-clouds/ -The cat in Orion - or was it a fox? https://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2018/04/The_cat_in_Orion_or_was_it_a_fox -How many stars to expect in Gaia’s second data release: http://sci.esa.int/gaia/60146-how-many-stars-to-expect-in-gaia-s-second-data-release/