Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Jun 2006
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006aas...208.2501p&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society Meeting 208, #25.01; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 38, p.105
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Scientific paper
ESA's Gaia mission (www.rssd.esa.int/gaia) will make an extensive census of the stellar population of our Galaxy. It will determine the three-dimensional spatial and velocity distribution of some one billion stars, and thereby advance our understanding of the present-day structure and evolutionary history of our Galaxy. To be launched in 2011 and operated at L2, the satellite will scan the sky some 70 times over 5 years. On-board detection will ensure the observation of all objects, including transients and solar system objects, to well-defined completeness limits of about 20 mag. High-precision, multi-epoch observations will then yield their positions, parallaxes, and annual proper motions. Accuracies will range between 7/25/300 microarcsec at 10/15/20 mag respectively. Low-resolution spectra between 400-1000 nm will provide data for astrophysical characterisation of each object (effective temperature, metallicity, gravity, and line-of-sight extinction), with radial velocities to 17 mag providing the third component of space motion for a significant fraction. The talk will cover the scientific case, highlighting advances expected in areas such as exo-planets, relativity, and solar system studies, the observational and instrumental principles, and the prototypes and organisational structure now in place for the data analysis.
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