Speaker
Description
The Galactic Centre is a key environment for understanding how the Milky Way formed and evolved, and for studying the inner regions of spiral galaxies. However, extreme extinction and stellar crowding make Gaia effectively blind to its central parsecs. Near-infrared surveys such as GALACTICNUCLEUS and VVVX-Galcen are revealing the stellar populations there, but their 3D structure and formation history remain uncertain. A future Gaia-NIR mission could provide a direct view of these heavily obscured regions. In this talk, I will review the current state of the field, outline the major open questions, and discuss the potential role and limitations of Gaia-NIR in advancing our understanding of the Galactic Centre. I will also highlight its synergy with ongoing near-infrared surveys.
