Aerosols play an important role in the physics of the atmosphere and in the formation of droplets that form clouds. They are one of the players in the processes that govern global warming. An aerosol detector taken density measurements aboard Gaia during the summer of 2020. The contribution these measurements can make to understanding the atmosphere is described here.

Fabian Lachmann and Timothy Bywater - students of the Kantonschule Wohlen - analyzed the data from the erosol detector developed by Jean-Pierre Wolf and Jérôme Kasparian (Applied Physics Group of the University of Geneva) and placed on the Gaia sailboat sailing from La Rochelle to Scotland in summer 2020. They used this data to write their graduation thesis and present here a summary of their remarkable work.