Job profile 6 of 8 · Example: ESA ESAC, near Madrid
Data science: billions of measurements become a map of the sky
ESA's ESAC centre near Madrid hosts the science operations centres and archives of astronomy and planetary missions26. There and in large research consortia, raw data becomes catalogues: Gaia's next one contains about 2.8 billion sources7.
Free, no sign-up, every statement with a source.
01 · Research
What is researched here: from a mountain of data to 500 discoveries
Euclid found 26 million galaxies in 1 week and is to image more than 1.5 billion over 6 years. The AI model Zoobot, trained by 9,976 volunteers, sorted more than 380,000 galaxies by shape. AI, volunteers and experts together found 500 candidates for strong gravitational lenses25.
Gaia measured for more than 10 years and delivered orbits of more than 150,000 asteroids and the largest 3D map of about 1.3 million quasars74.
As a table
| Stage | Number |
|---|---|
| Gaia DR4 sources | 2,800,000,000 |
| Euclid, planned galaxies over 6 years | 1,500,000,000 |
| Euclid, galaxies in 1 week | 26,000,000 |
| sorted by shape by Zoobot | 380,000 |
| candidates for strong lenses | 500 |
02 · End product
The end product: open catalogues for researchers worldwide
Gaia DR4 is released on 2 December 2026. It covers 66 months of data and about 400 terabytes; the core catalogue alone contains about 2 billion sources of particularly high quality7,8.
Euclid published its first data on 19 March 2025; the major cosmology release is planned for October 202625.
03 · Daily work
What the work looks like: 4 steps from raw data to discovery
- Process: turn raw data into catalogues; for Gaia, hundreds of experts work on data processing74.
- Train AI: let models like Zoobot learn from examples labelled by volunteers25.
- Check candidates: have the AI's hits reviewed by people and experts25.
- Publish: release data and documentation through the ESA archive8.
Keywords from the sources
04 · Your path
Your way in: 4 steps
HTL, computer science
Databases and Python are your start; in Astro Pi you collect real measurements on the ISS55.
Bachelor
Computer science or physics; AI basics, for example, in the Robotics and AI bachelor in Klagenfurt35.
Master
For example Space Sciences and Earth from Space in Graz, focus on solar system physics36.
Entry
As an ESA Graduate Trainee1 or through a PhD co-funded by ESA2.
05 · Who is hiring?
More employers for science data
- Euclid Consortium: more than 2,000 scientists from 300 institutes in Europe, the USA, Canada and Japan25.
- IWF, Graz: analyses the data of its own instruments scientifically28.
- DLR Institute of Software Technology: department for high-performance computing and large data volumes12.