Related papers: Astrometry during the past 100 years

The Gaia astrometric mission - the Hipparcos successor - is described in some detail, with its three instruments: the two (spectro)photometers (BP and RP) covering the range 330-1050 nm, the white light (G-band) imager dedicated to…

The expected accurate astrometric data from Gaia offer the opportunity and the obligation to exploitation by a second all-sky mission. Therefore a proposal was submitted to ESA in May 2013 for a Gaia-like mission in about twenty years. Two…

Scope of this contribution is twofold. First, it describes the potential of the global astrometry mission Gaia for detecting and measuring planetary systems based on detailed double-blind mode simulations and on the most recent predictions…

Gaia is an all sky, high precision astrometric and photometric satellite of the European Space Agency (ESA) due for launch in 2010-2011. Its primary mission is to study the composition, formation and evolution of our Galaxy. Gaia will…

With Gaia in orbit since December 2013 it is time to look at the future of fundamental astrometry and a time frame of 50 years is needed in this matter. A space mission with Gaia-like astrometric performance is required, but not necessarily…

The power of micro-arcsecond ($\mu$as) astrometry is about to be unleashed. ESA's Gaia mission, now headed towards the end of the first year of routine science operations, will soon fulfil its promise for revolutionary science in countless…

The wealth of information in the Gaia catalogue of exoplanets will constitute a fundamental contribution to several hot topics of the astrophysics of planetary systems. I briefly review the potential impact of Gaia micro-arsec astrometry in…

In May 2013, I responded with the present paper to ESA's call for White Papers for the definition of Large missions. This was half a year before the launch of ESA's large astrometry mission Gaia. The present proposal for a Gaia successor…

Astrometry is one of the oldest branches of astronomy which measures the position, the proper motion and parallax of celestial objects. Following the Hipparcos and Gaia missions that have measured several billions of them using global…

In its all-sky survey, the ESA global astrometry mission Gaia will perform high-precision astrometry and photometry for 1 billion stars down to $V = 20$ mag. The data collected in the Gaia catalogue, to be published by the end of the next…

During some thirty years, 1980-2010, technical studies of optical interferometry from instruments in space were pursued as promising for higher spatial resolution and for higher astrometric accuracy. Nulling interferometry was studied for…

ESA recently called for new "Science Ideas" to be investigated in terms of feasibility and technological developments -- for technologies not yet sufficiently mature. These ideas may in the future become candidates for M or L class missions…

Overview of the determination of astronomical distances from a metrological standpoint. Distances are considered from the Solar System (planetary distances) to extragalactic distances, with a special emphasis on the fundamental step of the…

The great development of astrometric accuracy since the observations by the Greek astronomer Hipparchus about 150 BC has often been displayed in diagrams showing the accuracy versus time. Two new diagrams are provided here, one for…

Beating the Earth's day-night cycle is mandatory for long and continuous time-series photometry and had been achieved with either large ground-based networks of observatories at different geographic longitudes or when conducted from space.…

The Gaia satellite was selected as a cornerstone mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) in October 2000 and confirmed in 2002 with a current target launch date of 2011. The Gaia mission will gather on the same observational principles…

General relativistic effects in astrophyiscal systems have been detected thanks to accurate astrometric measurements. We outline some keystones of astrometry such as stellar aberration (argument development during the years 1727-1872);…

As the most ancient branch of astronomy, astrometry has been developed for thousands of years. However, it has only recently become possible to utilize astrometry for the detection of exoplanets. Gaia, an astrometric surveyor of 1 billion…

Image sensors, most notably the Charge Coupled Device (CCD), have revolutionized observational astronomy as perhaps the most important innovation after photography. Since the 50th anniversary of the invention of the CCD has passed in 2019,…

Astrometric space missions like Gaia have stimulated a rapid advance in the field of relativistic astrometry. Present investigations in that field aim at accuracies significantly less than a microarcsecond. We review the present status of…