i think one of the things astronomers were pleasantly surprised to see was that the Gaia results have indicated that other low rungs of the distance ladder were

i think one of the things astronomers were pleasantly surprised to see was that the Gaia results have indicated that other low rungs of the distance ladder were pretty well calibrated. Most of these are based in some way on stellar evolution, and given that stars can be kind of messy there was always a bit of nervousness that maybe our systematic errors are larger than we think. But the models turned out to be pretty good.