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2021, Astronomy & Astrophysics
Aims. We produce a clean and well-characterised catalogue of objects within 100 pc of the Sun from the Gaia Early Data Release 3. We characterise the catalogue through comparisons to the full data release, external catalogues, and simulations. We carry out a first analysis of the science that is possible with this sample to demonstrate its potential and best practices for its use. Methods. Theselection of objects within 100 pc from the full catalogue used selected training sets, machine-learning procedures, astrometric quantities, and solution quality indicators to determine a probability that the astrometric solution is reliable. The training set construction exploited the astrometric data, quality flags, and external photometry. For all candidates we calculated distance posterior probability densities using Bayesian procedures and mock catalogues to define priors. Any object with reliable astrometry and a non-zero probability of being within 100 pc is included in the catalogue. Re...
Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2016
Context. At about 1000 days after the launch of Gaia we present the first Gaia data release, Gaia DR1, consisting of astrometry and photometry for over 1 billion sources brighter than magnitude 20.7. Aims. A summary of Gaia DR1 is presented along with illustrations of the scientific quality of the data, followed by a discussion of the limitations due to the preliminary nature of this release. Methods. The raw data collected by Gaia during the first 14 months of the mission have been processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC) and turned into an astrometric and photometric catalogue. Results. Gaia DR1 consists of three components: a primary astrometric data set which contains the positions, parallaxes, and mean proper motions for about 2 million of the brightest stars in common with the Hipparcos and Tycho-2 catalogues-a realisation of the Tycho-Gaia Astrometric Solution (TGAS)-and a secondary astrometric data set containing the positions for an additional 1.1 billion sources. The second component is the photometric data set, consisting of mean G-band magnitudes for all sources. The G-band light curves and the characteristics of ∼3000 Cepheid and RR Lyrae stars, observed at high cadence around the south ecliptic pole, form the third component. For the primary astrometric data set the typical uncertainty is about 0.3 mas for the positions and parallaxes, and about 1 mas yr −1 for the proper motions. A systematic component of ∼0.3 mas should be added to the parallax uncertainties. For the subset of ∼94 000 Hipparcos stars in the primary data set, the proper motions are much more precise at about 0.06 mas yr −1. For the secondary astrometric data set, the typical uncertainty of the positions is ∼10 mas. The median uncertainties on the mean G-band magnitudes range from the mmag level to ∼0.03 mag over the magnitude range 5 to 20.7. Conclusions. Gaia DR1 is an important milestone ahead of the next Gaia data release, which will feature five-parameter astrometry for all sources. Extensive validation shows that Gaia DR1 represents a major advance in the mapping of the heavens and the availability of basic stellar data that underpin observational astrophysics. Nevertheless, the very preliminary nature of this first Gaia data release does lead to a number of important limitations to the data quality which should be carefully considered before drawing conclusions from the data.
Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2013
The Gaia satellite will survey the entire celestial sphere down to 20th magnitude, obtaining astrometry, photometry, and low resolution spectrophotometry on one billion astronomical sources, plus radial velocities for over one hundred million stars. Its main objective is to take a census of the stellar content of our Galaxy, with the goal of revealing its formation and evolution. Gaia's unique feature is the measurement of parallaxes and proper motions with hitherto unparalleled accuracy for many objects. As a survey, the physical properties of most of these objects are unknown. Here we describe the data analysis system put together by the Gaia consortium to classify these objects and to infer their astrophysical properties using the satellite's data. This system covers single stars, (unresolved) binary stars, quasars, and galaxies, all covering a wide parameter space. Multiple methods are used for many types of stars, producing multiple results for the end user according to different models and assumptions. Prior to its application to real Gaia data the accuracy of these methods cannot be assessed definitively. But as an example of the current performance, we can attain internal accuracies (RMS residuals) on F,G,K,M dwarfs and giants at G = 15 (V = 15-17) for a wide range of metallicites and interstellar extinctions of around 100 K in effective temperature (T eff ), 0.1 mag in extinction (A0), 0.2 dex in metallicity ([Fe/H]), and 0.25 dex in surface gravity (log g). The accuracy is a strong function of the parameters themselves, varying by a factor of more than two up or down over this parameter range. After its launch in November 2013, Gaia will nominally observe for five years, during which the system we describe will continue to evolve in light of experience with the real data.
Eas Publications Series, 2011
Accurate characterization of the errors in the global astrometric solution for Gaia is essential for making optimal use of the catalogue data. We investigate the structure of the covariance between the estimated astrometric parameters by studying the properties of the astrometric least squares solution. We find that astrometric errors can be separated in a star and an attitude part, due
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union, 2009
The scientific objectives of the Gaia mission cover areas of galactic structure and evolution, stellar astrophysics, exoplanets, solar system physics, and fundamental physics. Astrometrically, its main contribution will be the determination of millions of absolute stellar parallaxes and the establishment of a very accurate, dense and faint non-rotating optical reference frame. With a planned launch in spring 2012, the project is in its advanced implementation phase. In parallel, preparations for the scientific data processing are well under way within the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium. Final mission results are expected around 2021, but early releases of preliminary data are expected. This review summarizes the main science goals and overall organisation of the project, the measurement principle and core astrometric solution, and provide an updated overview of the expected astrometric performance.
arXiv (Cornell University), 2022
Context. Gaia Data Release 3 (DR3) provides a wealth of new data products for the astronomical community to exploit, including astrophysical parameters for a half billion stars. In this work we demonstrate the high quality of these data products and illustrate their use in different astrophysical contexts. Aims. We produce homogeneous samples of stars with high quality astrophysical parameters by exploiting Gaia DR3 while focusing on many regimes across the Hertzsprung-Russell (HR) diagram; spectral types OBA, FGKM, and ultra-cool dwarfs (UCDs). We also focus on specific sub-samples which are of particular interest to the community: solar analogues, carbon stars, and the Spectro Photometric Standard Stars (SPSS). Methods. We query the astrophysical parameter tables along with other tables in Gaia DR3 to derive the samples of the stars of interest. We validate our results by using the Gaia catalogue itself and by comparison with external data. Results. We have produced six homogeneous samples of stars with high quality astrophysical parameters across the HR diagram for the community to exploit. We first focus on three samples that span a large parameter space: young massive disk stars (OBA, ∼3M), FGKM spectral type stars (∼3M), and UCDs (∼20 K). We provide these sources along with additional information (either a flag or complementary parameters) as tables that are made available in the Gaia archive. We furthermore identify 15 740 bone fide carbon stars, 5 863 solar-analogues, and provide the first homogeneous set of stellar parameters of the SPSS sample. We demonstrate some applications of these samples in different astrophysical contexts. We use a subset of the OBA sample to illustrate its usefulness to analyse the Milky Way rotation curve. We then use the properties of the FGKM stars to analyse known exoplanet systems. We also analyse the ages of some unseen UCD-companions to the FGKM stars. We additionally predict the colours of the Sun in various passbands (Gaia, 2MASS, WISE) using the solar-analogue sample. Conclusions. Gaia DR3 contains a wealth of new high quality astrophysical parameters for the community to exploit.
2019
Over the past century, major advances in astronomy and astrophysics have been largely driven by improvements in instrumentation and data collection. With the amassing of high quality data from new telescopes, and especially with the advent of deep and large astronomical surveys, it is becoming clear that future advances will also rely heavily on how those data are analyzed and interpreted. New methodologies derived from advances in statistics, computer science, and machine learning are beginning to be employed in sophisticated investigations that are not only bringing forth new discoveries, but are placing them on a solid footing. Progress in wide-field sky surveys, interferometric imaging, precision cosmology, exoplanet detection and characterization, and many subfields of stellar, Galactic and extragalactic astronomy, has resulted in complex data analysis challenges that must be solved to perform scientific inference. Research in astrostatistics and astroinformatics will be necess...
This document defines the high level metadata necessary to describe the physical parameter space of observed or simulated astronomical data sets, such as 2D-images, data cubes, X-ray event lists, IFU data, etc.. The Characterisation data model is an abstraction which can be used to derive a structured description of any relevant data and thus to facilitate its discovery and scientific interpretation. The model aims at facilitating the manipulation of heterogeneous data in any VO framework or portal.
Cornell University - arXiv, 2022
Context. Gaia-CRF3 is the celestial reference frame for positions and proper motions in the third release of data from the Gaia mission, Gaia DR3 (and for the early third release, Gaia EDR3, which contains identical astrometric results). The reference frame is defined by the positions and proper motions at epoch 2016.0 for a specific set of extragalactic sources in the (E)DR3 catalogue. Aims. We describe the construction of Gaia-CRF3 and its properties in terms of the distributions in magnitude, colour, and astrometric quality. Methods. Compact extragalactic sources in Gaia DR3 were identified by positional cross-matching with 17 external catalogues of quasi-stellar objects (QSO) and active galactic nuclei (AGN), followed by astrometric filtering designed to remove stellar contaminants. Selecting a clean sample was favoured over including a higher number of extragalactic sources. For the final sample, the random and systematic errors in the proper motions are analysed, as well as the radio-optical offsets in position for sources in the third realisation of the International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF3). Results. Gaia-CRF3 comprises about 1.6 million QSO-like sources, of which 1.2 million have five-parameter astrometric solutions in Gaia DR3 and 0.4 million have six-parameter solutions. The sources span the magnitude range G = 13 to 21 with a peak density at 20.6 mag, at which the typical positional uncertainty is about 1 mas. The proper motions show systematic errors on the level of 12 µas yr −1 on angular scales greater than 15 deg. For the 3142 optical counterparts of ICRF3 sources in the S/X frequency bands, the median offset from the radio positions is about 0.5 mas, but it exceeds 4 mas in either coordinate for 127 sources. We outline the future of Gaia-CRF in the next Gaia data releases. Appendices give further details on the external catalogues used, how to extract information about the Gaia-CRF3 sources, potential (Galactic) confusion sources, and the estimation of the spin and orientation of an astrometric solution.
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2012
We describe two ground-based observing campaigns aimed at building a grid of approximately 200 spectrophotometric standard stars (SPSS), with an internal 1 per cent precision and tied to Vega within 3 per cent, for the absolute flux calibration of data gathered by Gaia, the European Space Agency (ESA) astrometric mission. The criteria for the selection and a list of candidates are presented, together with a description of the survey strategy and the adopted data analysis methods. We also discuss a short list of notable rejected SPSS candidates and difficult cases, based on identification problems, literature discordant data, visual companions and variability. In fact, all candidates are also monitored for constancy (within ±5 mmag, approximately). In particular, we report on a CALSPEC standard, 1740346, that we found to be a δ Scuti variable during our short-term monitoring (1-2 h) campaign.
Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 2020
We present a mock stellar catalog, matching in volume, depth and data model the content of the planned Gaia early data release 3 (Gaia EDR3). We have generated our catalog (GeDR3mock) using galaxia, a tool to sample stars from an underlying Milky Way (MW) model or from N-body data. We used an updated Besançon Galactic model together with the latest PARSEC stellar evolutionary tracks, now also including white dwarfs. We added the Magellanic clouds and realistic open clusters with internal rotation. We empirically modelled uncertainties based on Gaia DR2 (GDR2) and scaled them according to the longer baseline in Gaia EDR3. The apparent magnitudes were reddened according to a new selection of 3D extinction maps. To help with the Gaia selection function we provide all-sky magnitude limit maps in G and BP for a few relevant GDR2 subsets together with the routines to produce these maps for user-defined subsets. We supplement the catalog with photometry and extinctions in non-Gaia bands. The catalog is available in the Virtual Observatory a) and can be queried just like the actual Gaia EDR3 will be. We highlight a few capabilities of the Astronomy Data Query Language (ADQL) with educative catalog queries. We use the data extracted from those queries to compare GeDR3mock to GDR2, which emphasises the importance of adding observational noise to the mock data. Since the underlying truth, e.g. stellar parameters, is know in GeDR3mock, it can be used to construct priors as well as mock data tests for parameter estimation. All code, models and data used to produce GeDR3mock are linked and contained in galaxia wrap b) , a python package, representing a fast galactic forward model, able to project MW models and N-body data into realistic Gaia observables.
Planetary and Space Science
In this introductory paper, we review the subjects addressed during the meeting ''Solar System Science before and after Gaia'', which is at the origin of the content of this special issue. The several unknowns affecting our knowledge of the dynamical and physical properties of asteroids are briefly discussed, along with the perspectives opened by the availability of Gaia data and other surveys. The role of complementary observations is also stressed.
Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2014
Aims. An effort has been made to simulate the expected Gaia Catalogue, including the effect of observational errors. We statistically analyse this simulated Gaia data to better understand what can be obtained from the Gaia astrometric mission. This catalogue is used to investigate the potential yield in astrometric, photometric, and spectroscopic information and the extent and effect of observational errors on the true Gaia Catalogue. This article is a follow-up to previous work, where the expected Gaia Catalogue content was reviewed but without the simulation of observational errors. Methods. We analysed the Gaia Object Generator (GOG) catalogue using the Gaia Analysis Tool (GAT), thereby producing a number of statistics about the catalogue. Results. A simulated catalogue of one billion objects is presented, with detailed information on the 523 million individual single stars it contains. Detailed information is provided for the expected errors in parallax, position, proper motion, radial velocity, and the photometry in the four Gaia bands. Information is also given on the expected performance of physical parameter determination, including temperature, metallicity, and line-of-sight extinction.
Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2012
Context. To use the data in the future Gaia catalogue it is important to have accurate estimates of the statistical uncertainties and correlations of the errors in the astrometric data given in the catalogue. Aims. In a previous paper we derived a mathematical model for computing the covariances of the astrometric data based on series expansions and a simplified attitude description. The aim of the present paper is to determine to what extent this model provides an accurate representation of the expected random errors in the astrometric solution for Gaia. Methods. We simulate the astrometric core solution by making least-squares solutions of the astrometric parameters for one million stars and the attitude parameters for a five-year mission, using nearly one billion simulated elementary observations for a total of 26 million unknowns. Two cases are considered: one in which all stars have the same magnitude, and another with 30% brighter and 70% fainter stars. The resulting astrometric errors are statistically compared with the model predictions.
Gaia's astrometric solution aims to determine at least five parameters for each star, together with appropriate estimates of their uncertainties and correlations. This requires at least five distinct observations per star. In the early data reductions the number of observations may be insufficient for a five-parameter solution, and even after the full mission many stars will remain under-observed, including faint stars at the detection limit and transient objects. In such cases it is reasonable to determine only the two position parameters. Their formal uncertainties would however grossly underestimate the actual errors, due to the neglected parallax and proper motion. We aim to develop a recipe to calculate sensible formal uncertainties that can be used in all cases of under-observed stars. Prior information about the typical ranges of stellar parallaxes and proper motions is incorporated in the astrometric solution by means of Bayes' rule. Numerical simulations based on th...
2008
The current status of astrometry in Astro-WISE is explored. This includes the underlying mechanisms, procedures, performance, and accuracies of both the local and the global astrometric solution, as well as the improvement from the local to the global solution. Using all currently Astro-WISE processed data from the WFI instrument on the MPG/ESO 2.2m telescope (24512 frames, more than 3000 exposures), we show that the overall accuracies are consistent with and due to the precision of the USNO-A2.0 reference catalog (0.3 arcsec RMS and 1 arcsec systematic) for the local solution and are approximately 0.04 arcsec for the global solution. In addition, it is found that the precision of the underlying software (SExtractor, LDAC, SWarp) in extracting sources, applying solutions, and regridding frames to 0.200 arcsec per pixel is of the order 0.02 arcsec RMS. The performance of the local solution has a virtually 100% success rate with respect to the underlying software, a 98.0% success rate...
Arxiv preprint arXiv: …, 2011
Abstract: This document defines the high level metadata necessary to describe the physical parameter space of observed or simulated astronomical data sets, such as 2D-images, data cubes, X-ray event lists, IFU data, etc.. The Characterisation data model is an abstraction ...
2020
Since July 2014, the ESA Gaia mission has been surveying the entire sky down to magnitude 20.7 in the visible. In addition to the millions of stars, thousands of Solar System Objects (SSOs) are observed daily. By comparing their positions to those of known objects, a daily processing pipeline filters known objects from potential discoveries. However, owing to Gaia's specific scanning law designed for stars, potential newly discovered moving objects are characterized by very few observations, acquired over a limited time. This aspect was recognized early in the design of the Gaia data processing. A daily processing pipeline dedicated to these candidate discoveries was set up to release calls for observations to a network of ground-based telescopes. Their aim is to acquire follow-up astrometry and to characterize these objects. From the astrometry measured by Gaia, preliminary orbital solutions are determined, allowing to predict the position of these potentially new discovered ob...
Astrophysics and Space Science, 2012
Hipparcos, the first ever experiment of global astrometry, was launched by ESA (European Space Agency) in 1989 and its results published in 1997 (Perryman et al., Astron. Astrophys. 323, L49, 1997; Perryman & ESA (eds), The Hipparcos and Tycho catalogues, ESA SP-1200, 1997). A new reduction was later performed using an improved satellite attitude reconstruction leading to an improved accuracy for stars brighter than 9 th magnitude (van Leeuwen & Fantino, Astron. Astrophys. 439, 791, 2005; van Leeuwen, Astron. Astrophys. 474, 653, 2007). The Hipparcos Catalogue provided an extended dataset of very accurate astrometric data (positions, trigonometric parallaxes and proper motions), enlarging by two orders of magnitude the quantity and quality of distance determinations and luminosity calibrations. The availability of more than 20 000 stars (22 000 for the original catalogue, 30 000 for the re-reduction) with a trigonometric parallax known to better than 10 % opened the way to a drastic revision of our 3-D knowledge of the solar neighbourhood and to a renewal of the calibration of many distance indicators and age estimations. The prospects opened by Gaia, the next ESA cornerstone, planned for launch in June 2013 (Perryman et al., Astron. Astrophys. 369, 339, 2001), are still much more dramatic: a billion objects with systematic and quasi simultaneous astrometric, spectrophotometric and spectroscopic observations,
The Astronomical Journal, 2021
Stellar distances constitute a foundational pillar of astrophysics. The publication of 1.47 billion stellar parallaxes from Gaia is a major contribution to this. Despite Gaia’s precision, the majority of these stars are so distant or faint that their fractional parallax uncertainties are large, thereby precluding a simple inversion of parallax to provide a distance. Here we take a probabilistic approach to estimating stellar distances that uses a prior constructed from a three-dimensional model of our Galaxy. This model includes interstellar extinction and Gaia’s variable magnitude limit. We infer two types of distance. The first, geometric, uses the parallax with a direction-dependent prior on distance. The second, photogeometric, additionally uses the color and apparent magnitude of a star, by exploiting the fact that stars of a given color have a restricted range of probable absolute magnitudes (plus extinction). Tests on simulated data and external validations show that the phot...
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