Related papers: The Gaia mission
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…
We present the results of the very first search for faint Milky Way satellites in the Gaia data. Using stellar positions only, we are able to re-discover objects detected in much deeper data as recently as the last couple of years. While we…
Precise measurement of the fundamental parameters of stellar systems, including mass and radius, depends critically on how well the stellar distances are known. Astrometry from space provides parallax measurements of unprecented accuracy,…
The nearest stars provide a fundamental constraint for our understanding of stellar physics and the Galaxy. The nearby sample serves as an anchor where all objects can be studied and understood with precise data. This work is an update of…
The ESA Gaia mission provides a unique time-domain survey for more than one billion sources brighter than G=20.7 mag. Gaia offers the unprecedented opportunity to study variability phenomena in the Universe thanks to multi-epoch G-magnitude…
High-precision astrometry well beyond the capacities of Gaia will provide a unique way to achieve astrophysical breakthroughs, in particular on the nature of dark matter, and a complete survey of nearby habitable exoplanets. In this…
While the majority of massive stars have a stellar companion, most pulsars appear to be isolated. Taken at face value, this suggests that most massive binaries break apart due to strong natal kicks received in supernova explosions. However,…
The scientific community needs to be prepared to analyse the data from Gaia, one of the most ambitious ESA space missions, to be launched in 2012. The purpose of this paper is to provide data and tools in order to predict in advance how…
We describe the preliminary results of a ground-based observing campaign aimed at building a grid of approximately 200 spectro-photometric standard stars (SPSS), with an internal $\simeq 1$\% accuracy (and sub-percent precision), tied to…
In astrometric binaries, the presence of a dark, unseen star can be inferred from the gravitational pull it induces on its luminous binary companion. While the orbit of such binaries can be characterized with precise astrometric…
The astrometric space mission Gaia is expected to detect a large number of brown dwarf binary systems with close orbits and determine astrometric orbit solutions. This will provide key information for the formation and evolution of brown…
The Gaia mission is reviewed together with the expected contents of the final catalogue. It is then argued that the ultimate goal of Galactic structure studies with Gaia astrometry should be to build a dynamical model of our galaxy which is…
A new all-sky visible and Near-InfraRed (NIR) space astrometry mission with a wavelength cutoff in the K-band is not just focused on a single or small number of key science cases. Instead, it is extremely broad, answering key science…
Besides its major objective tuned to the detection of the stellar galactic population the Gaia mission experiment will also observe a large number of galaxies. In this work we intend to evaluate the number and the characteristics of the…
We use detailed numerical simulations and the $\upsilon$ Andromedae, planetary system as a template to evaluate the capability of the ESA Cornerstone Mission GAIA in detecting and measuring multiple planets around solar-type stars in the…
The ESA Gaia space astrometry mission will perform an all-sky survey of stellar objects complete in the nominal magnitude range G = [6.0 - 20.0]. The stars with G lower than 6.0, i.e. those visible to the unaided human eye, would thus not…
Stellar-mass black holes have been detected by radial-velocity observations in star/black hole binaries. These allow only the determination of the mass function. Tracking the astrometric orbits of the visible components of the star/black…
Wide binary stars are important for testing alternative models of gravitation in the weak-field regime and understanding the statistical outcomes of dynamical interactions in the general Galactic field. The Gaia mission's collection of…
Gaia is a major European Space Agency (ESA) astrophysics mission designed to map and analyse 10$^9$ stars, ultimately generating more than 1 PetaByte of data products. As Gaia data becomes publicly available and reaches a wider audience,…
Stellar mass is a fundamental parameter that is key to our understanding of stellar formation and evolution, as well as the characterization of nearby exoplanet companions. Historically, stellar masses have been derived from long-term…