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The Gaia satellite is a high-precision astrometry, photometry and spectroscopic ESA cornerstone mission, currently scheduled for launch in late 2011. Its primary science drivers are the composition, formation and evolution of the Galaxy.…
Gaia is ESA's ambitious space astrometry mission the main objective of which is to astrometrically and spectro-photometrically map 1000 Million celestial objects (mostly in our galaxy) with unprecedented accuracy. The announcement of…
The Kepler, K2 and TESS transit surveys are revolutionizing our understanding of planets orbiting close to their host stars and our understanding of exoplanet systems in general, but there remains a gap in our understanding of wide-orbit…
Much of the science case for the next generation of deep, wide-field optical/infrared surveys has been driven by the further study of dark energy. This is a laudable goal (and the subject of a companion white paper by Zhan et al.). However,…
Gaia is a space mission currently measuring the five astrometric parameters as well as spectrophotometry of at least 1 billion stars to G = 20.7 mag with unprecedented precision. The sixth parameter in phase space (radial velocity) is also…
Exoplanets are now being discovered in profusion. However, to understand their character requires spectral models and data. These elements of remote sensing can yield temperatures, compositions, and even weather patterns, but only if…
The Gaia satellite, planned for launch by the European Space Agency (ESA) in 2013, is the next generation astrometry mission following Hipparcos. While mapping the whole sky, the Gaia space mission is expected to discover thousands of Solar…
The ESA Gaia mission uses two telescopes to create the most ambitious survey of the Galaxy. The angle between them must be known with exquisite precision and accuracy. An interferometer: the Basic Angle Monitoring system measures its…
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 Gaia second data release contains high-accuracy astrometric measurements of thousands of solar system bodies. These measurements raise the possibility of determining asteroid masses by modeling scattering events between massive objects…
Time-series transit photometry from the Kepler space telescope has allowed for the discovery of thousands of exoplanets. We explore the potential of yet improved future missions such as PLATO 2.0 in detecting solar system analogues. We use…
We analyse the respective benefits and drawbacks of ground-based and space-based transit surveys for extrasolar planets. Based on simple but realistic assumptions about the fraction of lower main sequence stars harboring telluric and giant…
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…
The next decade will feature a growing number of massive ground-based photometric, spectroscopic, and time-domain surveys, including those produced by DECam, DESI, and LSST. The NOAO Data Lab was launched in 2017 to enable efficient…
In a few years the Kepler and TESS missions will provide ultra-precise photometry for thousands of RR Lyrae and hundreds of Cepheid stars. In the extended Kepler mission all targets are proposed in the Guest Observer (GO) Program, while the…
Despite centuries of close association, statistics and astronomy are surprisingly distant today. Most observational astronomical research relies on an inadequate toolbox of methodological tools. Yet the needs are substantial: astronomy…
The period 2035-50 considered in the ESA Voyage long-term plan will coincide with a series of foreseeable advances in the characterization of the stellar content of the Milky Way. The Gaia mission, combined with large-scale spectroscopic…
Context. This paper presents an overview of the photometric data that are part of the first Gaia data release. Aims. The principles of the processing and the main characteristics of the Gaia photometric data are presented. Methods. The…
Scientific research is a continuous process, and the speed of future progress can be estimated by the pace of finding explanations for previous research questions. In this observers based view of stellar pulsation and asteroseismology, we…
We present MINESweeper, a tool to measure stellar parameters by jointly fitting observed spectra and broadband photometry to model isochrones and spectral libraries. This approach enables the measurement of spectrophotometric distances, in…