Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Aug 2006
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006iaujd..16e..25l&link_type=abstract
Nomenclature, Precession and New Models in Fundamental Astronomy, 26th meeting of the IAU, Joint Discussion 16, 22-23 August 200
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
The use of space platforms for astrometric observations in the visual and infrared has enormous potential for almost all branches of stellar and galactic astrophysics, as well as for solar-system research, cosmology and fundamental physics. The technical requirements for this are briefly reviewed in very general terms, highlighting the difference between all-sky survey missions such as Hipparcos and Gaia, and pointed instruments such as SIM PlanetQuest. The importance of obtaining complementary spectrophotometric and radial-velocity data is stressed: these are needed not only for the astrophysical study of the objects, but are in many cases crucial for a correct interpretation of the astrometric measurements. Gaia is a fully funded ESA mission, now in the detailed design and implementation phase (B2/C/D) with a planned launch in late 2011. During its 5-6 year lifetime, it will observe most point sources brighter than 20th magnitude, including an estimated 1000 million stars, half a million of quasars and very large numbers of asteroids, extragalactic supernovae, etc. The expected accuracy of the positions at mean epoch, parallaxes and annual proper motions is about 10 microarcsec for bright (< 12 mag) objects, 25 microarcsec at 15th mag, and 300 microarcsec at 20th mag. Quasi-simultaneous spectrophotometry is obtained for all objects and radial velocities for objects brighter than 16-17 mag.
The main impact of Gaia is expected in galactic research, through the flux-limited survey of all six components of phase space including spectrophotometric classification, which will probe the distribution stars, dust and dark matter and shed new light on the formation of the Galaxy; and in stellar astrophysics, through the massive numbers of accurate trigonometric distances (e.g. ~5 million better than 1%) for a wide range of masses and evolutionary stages, which will provide new calibrators for fundamental stellar parameters and help to put much more stringent constraints on theoretical stellar models.
No associations
LandOfFree
Scientific Potential Of The Future Space Astrometric Missions does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.
If you have personal experience with Scientific Potential Of The Future Space Astrometric Missions, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Scientific Potential Of The Future Space Astrometric Missions will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1624830