Gaia catalogues

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An all-sky view of stars in the Milky Way and neighbouring galaxies, based on the first year of observations by Gaia, from July 2014 to September 2015. Map shows the density of stars observed by Gaia in each portion of the sky. Brighter regions indicate denser concentrations of stars, while darker regions correspond to patches of the sky where fewer stars are observed. Gaia's first sky map ESA365175.png
An all-sky view of stars in the Milky Way and neighbouring galaxies, based on the first year of observations by Gaia, from July 2014 to September 2015. Map shows the density of stars observed by Gaia in each portion of the sky. Brighter regions indicate denser concentrations of stars, while darker regions correspond to patches of the sky where fewer stars are observed.

The Gaia catalogues are star catalogues created using the results obtained by Gaia space telescope.

Contents

The catalogues are released in stages that will contain increasing amounts of information; the early releases also miss some stars, especially fainter stars located in dense star fields. [1] Data from every data release can be accessed at the Gaia archive. [2]

Initial Gaia Source List

The Initial Gaia Source List (IGSL) is a star catalogue of 1.2 billion objects created in support of the Gaia mission. The mission should have delivered a catalogue based entirely on its own data. For the first catalogue, Gaia DR1, a way was needed to be able to assign the observations to an object and to compare them with the objects from other star catalogues. For this purpose, a separate catalog of objects from several other catalogues was compiled, which roughly represents the state of knowledge of astronomy at the beginning of the Gaia mission. [3]

Attitude Star Catalog

The Attitude Star Catalog is a subset of the IGSL, required for the first approximation in the iterative evaluation of the Gaia data. A first version was created in 2013, a more refined version in April 2014. In total, the Attitude Star Catalog contains 8,173,331 entries with information on position, proper motion and magnitude. [4] Starting with Gaia DR2, the Attitude Star Catalog was replaced with a new list generated from the Gaia Main Data Base (MDB), using the same criteria.

Gaia Spectrophotometric Standard Star Catalogue

IGSL contains a list of about 200 stars of different spectral classes and magnitudes needed for calibration of the photometric measurements. It is the result of the Gaia Spectrophotometric Standard Stars Survey (SPSS), a selection of stars using Earth-based data in advance of the Gaia mission. Previous catalogues for calibrating magnitudes could not be used for the mission because many of these objects are too bright for Gaia to detect. It was anticipated that some of the stars selected may be previously unrecognized doubles or variable stars that would need to be deleted from the catalogue; for this reason the list contains more stars than necessary. [5] [6] For Gaia EDR3 (Early Data Release 3), a selection was made from more than 100,000 objects that were used for the calibration. These are well-observed objects selected according to Stetson Secondary Standards, but only Gaia data were used. [7]

Gaia Initial Quasar Catalog

A list of quasars based on the Large Quasar Astrometric Catalog was prepared for IGSL. This in turn goes back to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. From the more than one million objects, a selection of 150,000 quasars was made, which are in the region of Gaia's magnitude limit. The selected objects are already well observed and documented. In most cases, quasars are very far away, so that their proper motions and parallaxes are negligibly small. [8] [9]

Gaia Ecliptic Pole Catalogue

Gaia Ecliptic Pole Catalogue (GEPC) was created for measuring the poles. The southern part of the catalogue was compiled from observations made with the MPG/ESO telescope at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in La Silla, Chile. It contains precise positions, UBV I photometry for the southern field and the corresponding magnitudes. The northern part was created with the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii.

The GEPC v3.0 catalogue contains 612,946 objects from a field of one square degree each at the north and south poles. The north pole is relatively sparse and contains 164,468 objects, while the south pole is still in the region of the Large Magellanic Cloud and contains 448,478 objects. [10] The GEPC data was needed right at the beginning of the mission for the initial calibration. The commissioning phase of the Gaia space probe ended on July 18, 2014. This was followed by a calibration phase of 28 days, during which the ecliptic poles were measured intensively. During this time, Gaia was operated in Ecliptic Poles Scan Law mode (EPSL), in which the two poles were measured twice during each revolution. The initial catalogue was used for Gaia DR1 to match Gaia-found objects to previous star catalogues.

Gaia DR1

Gaia DR1, the first data release based on 14 months of observations made through September 2015, took place on 13 September 2016. [11] [12] It includes "positions and magnitudes in a single photometric band for 1.1 billion stars using only Gaia data, positions, parallaxes and proper motions for more than 2 million stars" based on a combination of Gaia and Tycho-2 data for those objects in both catalogues, "light curves and characteristics for about 3000 variable stars, and positions and magnitudes for more than 2000 extragalactic sources used to define the celestial reference frame". [13] [14]

Gaia DR2

Stars in Gaia DR2 How many stars will there be in the second Gaia data release%3F ESA392158.jpg
Stars in Gaia DR2

The second data release (DR2), which occurred on 25 April 2018, [15] [16] is based on 22 months of observations made between 25 July 2014 and 23 May 2016. It includes positions, parallaxes and proper motions for about 1.3 billion stars and positions of an additional 300 million stars in the magnitude range g = 3–20, [17] red and blue photometric data for about 1.1 billion stars and single colour photometry for an additional 400 million stars, and median radial velocities for about 7 million stars between magnitude 4 and 13. It also contains data for over 14,000 selected Solar System objects. [18] [19]

The coordinates in DR2 use the second Gaia celestial reference frame (Gaia–CRF2), which is based on observations of 492,006 sources believed to be quasars and has been described as "the first full-fledged optical realisation of the ICRS ... built only on extragalactic sources." [20] Comparison of the positions of 2,843 sources common to Gaia–CRF2 and a preliminary version of the ICRF3 shows a global agreement of 20 to 30 μas, although individual sources may differ by several mas. [21] Since the data processing procedure links individual Gaia observations with particular sources on the sky, in some cases the association of observations with sources will be different in the second data release. Consequently, DR2 uses different source identification numbers than DR1. [22] A number of issues have been identified with the DR2 data, including small systematic errors in astrometry and significant contamination of radial velocity values in crowded star fields, which may affect some one percent of the radial velocity values. Ongoing work should resolve these issues in future releases. [23] A guide for researchers using Gaia DR2, which collected "all information, tips and tricks, pitfalls, caveats and recommendations relevant to" DR2, was prepared by the Gaia Helpdesk in December 2019. [17]

Gaia DR3

Due to uncertainties in the data pipeline, the third data release, based on 34 months of observations, has been split into two parts so that data that was ready first, was released first. The first part, EDR3 (Early Data Release 3), consisting of improved positions, parallaxes and proper motions, was released on 3 December 2020. [24] The coordinates in EDR3 use a new version of the Gaia celestial reference frame (Gaia–CRF3), based on observations of 1,614,173 extragalactic sources, [24] 2,269 of which were common to radio sources in the third revision of the International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF3). [25] Included is the Gaia Catalogue of Nearby Stars (GCNS), containing 331,312 stars within (nominally) 100 parsecs (330 light-years). [26] [27]

The full DR3, published on 13 June 2022, includes the EDR3 data plus Solar System data; variability information; results for non-single stars, for quasars, and for extended objects; astrophysical parameters; and a special data set, the Gaia Andromeda Photometric Survey (GAPS), providing a photometric time series for about 1 million sources located in a 5.5-degree radius field centered on the Andromeda galaxy. [28] [29] The release dates of EDR3 and DR3 were delayed by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium. [30] [31]

Gaia Focused Product Release

Gaia Focused Product Release from October 2023 focused on Omega Centauri and contained more that half a million stars from that region. [32]

Gaia DR4 and DR5

The full data release for the five-year nominal mission, DR4, will include full astrometric, photometric and radial-velocity catalogues, variable-star and non-single-star solutions, source classifications plus multiple astrophysical parameters for stars, unresolved binaries, galaxies and quasars, an exo-planet list and epoch and transit data for all sources. [1] Most measurements in DR4 are expected to be 1.7 times more precise than DR2; proper motions will be 4.5 times more precise. [33] DR4 is expected to be released no earlier than mid-2026. [1]

The last catalogue, DR5, will consist of all data collected during the lifespan of the mission. It will be 1.4 times more precise than DR4, while proper motions will be 2.8 times more precise than DR4. [33] It will be published no earlier than the end of 2030. [1]

Gaia Archive

The Gaia Archive is a catalogue that contains positions and brightnesses for 1.7 billion stars, including distances and proper motions for more than 1.3 billion stars. [34]

An outreach application, Gaia Sky , has been developed to explore the galaxy in three dimensions using Gaia data. [35]

See also

Related Research Articles

<i>Hipparcos</i> European Space Agency scientific satellite

Hipparcos was a scientific satellite of the European Space Agency (ESA), launched in 1989 and operated until 1993. It was the first space experiment devoted to precision astrometry, the accurate measurement of the positions of celestial objects on the sky. This permitted the first high-precision measurements of the intrinsic brightnesses proper motions, and parallaxes of stars, enabling better calculations of their distance and tangential velocity. When combined with radial velocity measurements from spectroscopy, astrophysicists were able to finally measure all six quantities needed to determine the motion of stars. The resulting Hipparcos Catalogue, a high-precision catalogue of more than 118,200 stars, was published in 1997. The lower-precision Tycho Catalogue of more than a million stars was published at the same time, while the enhanced Tycho-2 Catalogue of 2.5 million stars was published in 2000. Hipparcos' follow-up mission, Gaia, was launched in 2013.

<i>Gaia</i> (spacecraft) European optical space observatory for astrometry

Gaia is a space observatory of the European Space Agency (ESA), launched in 2013 and expected to operate until 2025. The spacecraft is designed for astrometry: measuring the positions, distances and motions of stars with unprecedented precision, and the positions of exoplanets by measuring attributes about the stars they orbit such as their apparent magnitude and color. The mission aims to construct by far the largest and most precise 3D space catalog ever made, totalling approximately 1 billion astronomical objects, mainly stars, but also planets, comets, asteroids and quasars, among others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Winnecke 4</span> Optical double star in the constellation Ursa Major

Winnecke 4 is an optical double star consisting of two unrelated stars in a northerly zone of the sky, Ursa Major.

107 Aquarii is a double star in the equatorial constellation of Aquarius. 107 Aquarii is the Flamsteed designation, although it also bears the Bayer designation i2 Aquarii. The pair have an angular separation of 6.787 arcseconds. They have a combined apparent visual magnitude of +5.305, with individual magnitudes of 5.72 and 6.72. The annual parallax shift measured for the two components is 16.1 mas and 20.0 mas respectively, although with significant statistical margins of error and flags for potential unreliability of both values. This indicates the system may be at a distance of 160–200 light-years from Earth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">21 Aquilae</span> Star in the constellation Aquila

21 Aquilae is a solitary variable star in the equatorial constellation of Aquila. It has the variable star designation V1288 Aql; 21 Aquilae is its Flamsteed designation. This object is visible to the naked eye as a dim, blue-white hued star with a baseline apparent visual magnitude of about 5.1. The star is located at a distance of around 680 light-years from Earth, give or take a 20 light-year margin of error. It is moving closer to the Earth with a heliocentric radial velocity of –5 km/s.

40 Boötis is a single star located 166.5 light years away from the Sun in the northern constellation of Boötes. It is visible to the naked eye as a dim, yellow-white hued star with an apparent visual magnitude of 5.64. The star is moving away from the Earth with a heliocentric radial velocity of +12 km/s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">4 Cassiopeiae</span> Star in the constellation Cassiopeia

4 Cassiopeiae is a red giant in the northern constellation of Cassiopeia, located approximately 790 light-years away from the Sun. It is visible to the naked eye as a faint, red-hued star with a baseline apparent visual magnitude of 4.96. At the distance of this system, its visual magnitude is diminished by an extinction of 0.56 due to interstellar dust. This system is moving closer to the Earth with a heliocentric radial velocity of −39 km/s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HD 155035</span> Star in the constellation Ara

HD 155035 is a star in the constellation Ara, the Altar. It is located at a distance of approximately 1,450 light-years from Earth and has an apparent visual magnitude of 5.92, making it is faintly visible to the naked eye. This is a red giant star with a stellar classification of M1.5 III. It an irregular variable that changes brightness over an amplitude range of 0.12 magnitudes.

74 Cygni is a visual binary star system in the northern constellation Cygnus, located around 249 light years distant from the Sun. It is visible to the naked eye as a faint, white-hued star with a combined apparent visual magnitude of 5.04. The pair orbit each other with a period of 1.57 years and an eccentricity of 0.5. The system is a source of X-ray emission, which is most likely coming from the secondary component.

HD 63399 is an orange hued star located in the southern constellation Puppis, the poop deck. It has an apparent magnitude of 6.45, placing it near the limit for naked eye visibility. Based on parallax measurements from Gaia DR3, the object is estimated to be 445 light years distant. It appears to be receding with a spectroscopic radial velocity of 28.5 km/s. At its current distance, HD 63399 is diminished by 0.29 magnitudes due to interstellar dust.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">V915 Scorpii</span> Variable star in the constellation Scorpius

V915 Scorpii is a hypergiant and semiregular variable star, located 1,718 parsecs (5,600 ly) away in the constellation Scorpius. Its apparent magnitude varies between 6.22 and 6.64, being heavily diminshed by 2.93 magnitudes due to interstellar extinction.

HD 39901 is an orange hued star located in the constellation Columba. It is also called HR 2069, which is the star's Bright Star Catalog designation. Eggen (1989) lists it as a member of the old disk population.

HD 155448 is a quintuple star system consisting of 5 young B-type stars. With an apparent magnitude of 8.72, it is too dim to be visible with the naked eye.

HD 1, also known as HIP 422, is the first star catalogued in the Henry Draper Catalogue. It is located in the northern circumpolar constellation Cepheus and has an apparent magnitude of 7.42, making it readily visible in binoculars, but not to the naked eye. The object is located relatively far away at a distance of 1,220 light years but is approaching the Solar System with a spectroscopic radial velocity of −27.3 km/s.

HD 47500, also known as HR 2446, is a binary star in the southern constellation Columba. The primary has an apparent magnitude of 5.91, making it faintly visible to the naked eye if viewed under ideal conditions. As for the companion, its visual magnitude is 7.51. The system is located relatively far at a distance of 1,120 light years based on parallax measurements, and is receding with a heliocentric radial velocity of 21 km/s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chi Octantis</span> Star in the constellation Octans

Chi Octantis, Latinized from χ Octantis, is a solitary star located in the southern circumpolar constellation Octans. It is faintly visible to the naked eye as an orange-hued star with an apparent magnitude of 5.28. The object is located relatively close at a distance of 261 light years based on Gaia EDR3 parallax measurements, but it is receding with a heliocentric radial velocity 33.6 km/s. At its current distance, Chi Octantis' brightness is diminished by 0.24 magnitudes due to interstellar dust. It has an absolute magnitude of +0.81.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">12 Trianguli</span> Star in the constellation Triangulum

12 Trianguli is a solitary star located in the northern constellation Triangulum, with an apparent magnitude of 5.37, making it faintly visible to the naked eye under ideal conditions. The star is situated 160 light years away but is approaching with a heliocentric radial velocity of −24.8 km/s. It is calculated to be about 2.19 Gyr old with a stellar classification of F0 III, making it an F-type giant. It has 1.6 times the mass of the Sun and shines at 14 times the luminosity of the Sun from its photosphere at an effective temperature of 7,199 K.

10 Delphini is a solitary star in the equatorial constellation Delphinus. It has an apparent magnitude of 6.00, allowing it to be faintly seen with the naked eye. Parallax measurements put the object at a distance of 493 light years but is drifting closer with a heliocentric radial velocity of −32 km/s.

15 Delphini is a star in the equatorial constellation Delphinus. It has an apparent magnitude of 5.99, allowing it to be faintly seen with the naked eye. The star is relatively close at a distance of 99 light years but is receding with a heliocentric radial velocity of 4.1 km/s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HD 51418</span> Star in the constellation Auriga

HD 51418 is an Ap star and an α2 CVn variable located about 178 parsecs (580 ly) away in the northern constellation of Auriga. With an apparent magnitude of 6.67 and a spectral type of A0, it can be faintly visible by the naked eye as a whitish dot under very good circumstances. The star has been noted as an "extreme lanthanide star," with an overabundance of metals including europium, dysprosium, and holmium, which can be observed in the star's spectra as emission lines.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Gaia Data Release Scenario". ESA . Retrieved 8 August 2024.
  2. ↑ "Gaia Archive".
  3. ↑ R. L. Smart (2013-10-17). "The Initial Gaia Source List and the Attitude Star Catalog GAIA-C3-TN-OATO-RLS-004-02". Gaia DPAC Data Processing & Analysis Consortium.
  4. ↑ R. L. Smart (2014-04-28). "The Attitude Star Catalog" (PDF). DPAC.
  5. ↑ E. Pancino; et al. (2012). "The Gaia spectrophotometric standard stars survey - I. Preliminary results". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 426 (3): 1767–1781. arXiv: 1207.6042 . Bibcode:2012MNRAS.426.1767P. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2012.21766.x . S2CID   27564967.
  6. ↑ C. Jordi; et al. "The Gaia Spectrophotometric Standard Stars" (PDF).
  7. ↑ Marco Riello; F. De Angeli; D. W. Evans (2020-12-03). "Gaia Early Data Release 3: Photometric content and validation". Astronomy & Astrophysics. 649: A3. arXiv: 2012.01916 . doi: 10.1051/0004-6361/202039587 . ISSN   0004-6361. S2CID   248245902.
  8. ↑ Mignard, F.; Klioner, S.; Lindegren, L.; Bastian, U.; Bombrun, A.; Hernández, J.; Hobbs, D.; Lammers, U.; Michalik, D.; Ramos-Lerate, M.; Biermann, M.; Butkevich, A.; Comoretto, G.; Joliet, E.; Holl, B.; Hutton, A.; Parsons, P.; Steidelmüller, H.; Andrei, A.; Bourda, G.; Charlot, P. (November 2016). "Gaia Data Release 1: Reference frame and optical properties of ICRF sources". Astronomy & Astrophysics. 595: A5. arXiv: 1609.07255 . Bibcode:2016A&A...595A...5M. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201629534. S2CID   46661611.
  9. ↑ Michalik, Daniel; Lindegren, Lennart (February 2016). "Quasars can be used to verify the parallax zero-point of the Tycho - Gaia Astrometric Solution". Astronomy & Astrophysics. 586: A26. arXiv: 1511.01896 . Bibcode:2016A&A...586A..26M. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201527444. S2CID   119126039.
  10. ↑ Altmann, M.; Bastian, Uli (17 February 2017). "2.2.4 The Gaia Ecliptic Pole Catalog (GEPC)" (PDF). Gaia Data Release 1 (Report). European Space Agency and Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium. Retrieved 17 August 2022.
  11. ↑ Jonathan Amos (14 July 2016). "Gaia space telescope plots a billion stars". BBC. Retrieved 2022-09-23.
  12. ↑ "Gaia's billion-star map hints at treasures to come" (Press release). ESA. 13 September 2016. Retrieved 2022-09-23.
  13. ↑ "Gaia Data Release 1 (Gaia DR1)". 14 September 2016. Retrieved 16 September 2016.
  14. ↑ "Data Release 1". 15 September 2016. Retrieved 15 September 2016.
  15. ↑ Overbye, Dennis (1 May 2018). "Gaia's Map of 1.3 Billion Stars Makes for a Milky Way in a Bottle". The New York Times . Retrieved 1 May 2018.
  16. ↑ "You Are Here: Scientists Unveil Precise Map Of More Than A Billion Stars". NPR.org.
  17. 1 2 Gaia Helpdesk (9 December 2019), Gaia DR2 primer: Everything you wish you had known before you started working with Gaia Data Release 2 (pdf), vol. 1, retrieved 10 December 2019
  18. ↑ "Gaia Data Release 2 (Gaia DR2)". 25 April 2018. Retrieved 26 April 2018.
  19. ↑ "Selected asteroids detected by Gaia between August 2014 and May 2016" . Retrieved 2 December 2017.
  20. ↑ Gaia Collaboration; Mignard, F.; et al. (2018). "Gaia Data Release 2 – The celestial reference frame (Gaia-CRF2)". Astronomy & Astrophysics. 616 (A14): A14. arXiv: 1804.09377 . Bibcode:2018A&A...616A..14G. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201832916. S2CID   52838272.
  21. ↑ Lindegren, L.; Hernandez, J.; Bombrun, A.; Klioner, S.; et al. (2018). "Gaia Data Release 2 – The astrometric solution". Astronomy & Astrophysics. 616 (A2): A2. arXiv: 1804.09366 . Bibcode:2018A&A...616A...2L. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201832727. S2CID   54497421.
  22. ↑ Prusti, Timo; Brown, Anthony (3 February 2017). "Gaia DR2 Schedule". ESA. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
  23. ↑ "Known issues with the Gaia DR2 data". European Space Agency. Retrieved 31 January 2019.
  24. 1 2 "Gaia Early Data Release 3 (Gaia EDR3)". ESA. Retrieved 12 December 2020.
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  26. ↑ "Gaia EDR3 - Gaia Catalogue of Nearby Stars - Gaia - Cosmos". www.cosmos.esa.int.
  27. ↑ Richard Smart, L. M. Sarro, J. Rybizki, C. Reyle, A. C. Robin (2021). "Gaia Early Data Release 3: The Gaia Catalogue of Nearby Stars". Astronomy & Astrophysics. A6: 649. arXiv: 2012.02061 . Bibcode:2021A&A...649A...6G. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202039498. ISSN   0004-6361. S2CID   227255512.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  28. ↑ "Gaia Data Release 3 split into two parts". ESA. 29 January 2019. Retrieved 29 January 2019.
  29. ↑ "Update to the Gaia data release scenario". ESA. 26 September 2019. Retrieved 28 September 2019.
  30. ↑ "Delay of Gaia (E)DR3", Gaia Newsletter, no. #10, 18 March 2020, retrieved 21 March 2020
  31. ↑ "Gaia Data Release 3 overview". 2022. Retrieved 23 February 2022.
  32. ↑ "New Gaia release reveals rare lenses, cluster cores and unforeseen science". www.esa.int. Retrieved 15 October 2023.
  33. 1 2 Brown, Anthony G.A. (12 April 2019). The Future of the Gaia Universe. 53rd ESLAB symposium "the Gaia universe". doi:10.5281/zenodo.2637971.
  34. ↑ "Gaia". irsa.ipac.caltech.edu. Retrieved 2020-12-15.
  35. ↑ Sagristà Sellés, Toni (2016). "Gaia Sky". Heidelberg: Astronomisches Rechen-Institut (ZAH), Universität Heidelberg. Retrieved 2019-11-21.
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