The Gaia Mission - Overview, First Results, and future prospects The astrometric satellite Gaia was launched in December 2019. After a comprehensive commissioning phase Gaia began its nominal scientific measurements in mid 2014. Gaia’s main goal is the determination of precise astrometric data for more than one billion stars in...

The Astrophysics of BH-BH/NS-NS Mergers with LIGO/Virgo I will discuss the astrophysical importance of the recent LIGO/Virgo direct detections of gravitational-waves. Despite majority of the expectations, it was not neutron star mergers being detected first, but the series of exotic massive black hole mergers. I will describe the leading theories...