Presentation Archive

The Gaia Revolution

George Seabroke (Mullard Space Science Laboratory, University College London (MSSL-UCL))

January 13, 2022

Abstract: The European Space Agency’s Gaia satellite is mapping our Milky Way Galaxy from space. The satellite is measuring fundamental properties of stars: their distance (parallax), how they move (proper motions and radial velocities) and their atmospheric parameters. The mission is revolutionising astrophysics because its data are being used in nearly every field of astronomy – it has overtaken Hubble as the most scientifically productive satellite. I will summarise the content of Gaia’s Early Data Release 3, which was released in December 2020, before looking forward to Gaia’s full Data Release 3 later this year, focusing on the harvest expected from Gaia’s Radial Velocity Spectrometer.