tens of thousands of ‘failed’ stars, called brown dwarfs seven thousand planets beyond our Solar System hundreds of thousands of asteroids and comets within our Solar System Create a three-dimensional map of the Galaxy.Determine their brightness, temperature, composition and motion through space.Measure the positions and velocity of approximately one billion stars in our Galaxy.Its expected haul includes asteroids in our Solar System, icy bodies in the outer Solar System, failed stars, infant stars, planets around other stars, far-distant stellar explosions, black holes in the process of feeding and giant black holes at the centers of other galaxies. In the course of charting the sky, Gaia’s highly superior instruments are expected to uncover vast numbers of previously unknown celestial objects, as well as studying normal stars. The resulting database will allow astronomers to trace the history of the Milky Way. However, Gaia will do so with extraordinary precision, far beyond the dreams of those ancient astronomers.īy comparing Gaia’s series of precise observations, today’s astronomers will soon be able to make precise measurements of the apparent movement of a star across the heavens, enabling them to determine its distance and motion through space. The precise measurement of a celestial object’s position is known as astrometry, and since humans first started studying the sky, astronomers have devoted much of their time to this art. Without this knowledge, astronomers would wander helplessly in what Galileo once termed a ‘dark labyrinth’.ĭuring the satellite’s expected lifetime of five years, Gaia will observe each star about 70 times, each time recording its brightness, color and, most importantly, its position. Before astronomers can investigate a celestial object, they must know where to find it. 1) 2) 3) 4) 5)Ĭataloguing the night sky is an essential part of astronomy. The mission will also study about 500,000 distant quasars and will provide stringent new tests of Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. It is expected to discover hundreds of thousands of new celestial objects, such as extra-solar planets and brown dwarfs, and observe hundreds of thousands of asteroids within our own Solar System. It will precisely chart their positions, distances, movements, and changes in brightness. Gaia will monitor each of its target stars about 70 times to a magnitude of G=20 over a period of 5 years.
#Pleiades astrometry arcsecond scale plus
Gaia (mother Earth in Greek mythology) is an ESA cornerstone space astrometric mission, part of the Horizon 2000 Plus long-term scientific program, with the goal to compile a 3D space catalog of > 1000 million stars, or roughly 1% of the stars in our home galaxy, the Milky Way.
#Pleiades astrometry arcsecond scale archive
Gaia Astrometry Mission Spacecraft Launch Mission Status Payload Module Ground Segment Big Data Archive References
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