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Gaia Newsletter #26

 

Compilation of news and updates from the Gaia mission since June 2023.

 

Share your feedback on ESA Astronomy Science Archives and ESASky

Do you use any of the ESA Astronomy science archives or ESASky? If so, we are eagerly seeking your valuable feedback! At ESA we are committed to providing you with the best possible experiences when accessing and utilizing our Astronomy Science Archives and the ESASky tool. To ensure that the services we offer meet your needs and expectations effectively, we have launched a short survey that aims to gather your insights and suggestions.

The survey is designed to be concise, taking no more than 10 minutes to complete. It covers various aspects of the Astronomy archives, including EXOSAT, Gaia, Herschel, HST, ISO, JWST, Lisa Pathfinder, Planck, XMM-Newton, and the ESASky tool itself. And at the end there are optional questions where you can provide us with more detailed feedback.

Your opinion matters! By participating in this survey, you have the opportunity to shape the future of these resources and help us enhance your experience. We genuinely appreciate your willingness to dedicate just a few minutes of your time to provide us with your feedback.

 

Access the survey

 

 

Gaia Focused Product Release

A detailed description of the contents of the Gaia Focused Product Release has been published in July following the annual EAS meeting. Along with this page, the overview page for the Focused Product Release was published as well as a summary page for the papers planned for publication along with the Gaia Focused Product Release. The webpages can be found here:

Hocus... Pocus... What will be your Gaia Focus? We are counting down! 42 days to go!

For full details, be referred to the contents description page.

   Period of data observations 66 months of data 34 months of data
   Total number of Gaia sources 1,812,236,358 (Gaia DR3 AGIS + Gaia FPR SIFCF)
  Gaia FPR Gaia FPR Gaia DR3
   Total number of sources     1,811,709,771
   Number of sources with full astrometry (AGIS) - - 1,467,744,818
   Number of sources with full astrometry (SIF Crowded Fields) 526,457 - -
   Number of sources with 2-parameter solution (AGIS) - - 343,964,953
   Number of sources with 2-parameter solution (SIF Crowded Fields) 130 - -
   Sources with mean G magnitude (PhotPipe) - - 1,806,254,432
   Sources with mean G magnitude (SIF Crowded Fields) 526,587 - -
   Specific Object Studies – Long-period variables - - 1,720,588
   Long Period Variables with radial velocity time series - 9,614 -
   Photometrically-variable sources with radial-velocity time series - - 1,898
   Sources with a diffuse interstellar band (DIB) in their RVS spectrum - use Gaia DR3 472,584
   Detection of diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) in stacked spectra - 235,428 -
   List of quasar candidates used for Gravitational Lens search - 3,760,032  
   Potential gravitational lens components (including the quasars) - 4,760,920 -
   Gravitational lens candidates (which will be ranked A+ to B-) - 381 -
   Solar system objects 156,823 - 158,152
   Solar system objects - epoch astrometry (CCD transits) 46,264,083 - 23,336,467
   Solar system objects - orbits 156,762 - 154,741
   Solar system objects - average BP/RP reflectance spectra use Gaia DR3 - 60,518
   Solar system objects - planetary satellites 31 - 31

 

Planned for publication along with the data are 5 Gaia Collaboration papers:

(1) Gaia Focused Product Release: Sources from Service Interface Function Image Analysis - Half a Million New Sources in Omega Centauri

(2) Gaia Focused Product Release: Radial velocity time series of long-period variables

(3) Gaia Focused Product Release: Asteroid astrometry and orbits - Accuracy, statistics and limitations

(4) Gaia Focused Product Release: Spatial distribution of two diffuse interstellar bands

(5) Gaia Focused Product Release: A catalogue of sources around quasars to search for strongly lensed quasars

 

Published across ESA websites

The following stories were published across ESA websites.

 

Stories on Gaia Cosmos

The following stories have been published on Gaia Cosmos since the last newsletter:

 

Gaia's multi-dimensional Milky Way

 

Gaia mission news

Gaia continues to operate nominally toward its 10th launch anniversary on 19 December this year. The current estimate of the remaining lifetime is about 1.5 years. In the first quarter of 2025 Gaia is expected to run out of cold gas, the gas used to maintain its highly precise scanning attitude.

Data processing performed by Gaia DPAC is progressing nominally toward Gaia DR4. The release is expected not before the end of 2025 and contains catalogues and data obtained during the first 66 months of operations.

Data processing for the final Gaia DR5 will start immediately after the end of spacecraft operations. ESA and the leading funding agencies supporting Gaia DPAC have extended the Multi-Lateral Agreement to ensure the delivery of Gaia DR5 that is anticipated not before the end of 2030.

 

ESA research fellowships in space science

ESA's postdoctoral Research Fellowship programme offers early-career scientists and engineers the possibility to carry out research in a variety of disciplines related to Space Science, Space Applications or Space Technology.

The Research Fellowships in Space Science specifically offer the opportunity to contribute to ESA's endeavour to explore our Solar System and the Universe, in the fields of Heliophysics, Planetary Science, Astrophysics and Fundamental Physics. Appointments are for a maximum of three years. The initial project is for two years, an extension for a third year is frequently ranted following a dedicated proposal for extension.

The call for applications will open very soon now, for the fellowships starting in autumn 2024, with a deadline for applications on 18 September 2023.

More information on the Research Fellowship programme is available at https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/space-science-faculty/opportunities/research-fellowships.

 

Gaia DPAC Solar System Objects team honoured by the "Asteroid Comet Meteorites" Science Organization committee

In June 2023, the Asteroid Comet Meteorites SOC honoured the collaborators of the Solar System Objects (SSO) team of the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium. They did so with asteroid nominations, naming 4 asteroids after members of the Gaia DPAC SSO team.

  • (30264) Galluccio
  • (32607) Portell
  • (33437) Ordenovic
  • (35623) Pedrodavid

Full citation and details can be found from the last bulletin of the IAU working group for small body names.

 

Gaia Symposium at EAS

On 10 and 11 July 2023, the symposium "Gaia: The (TWO) Billion Star Galaxy Census: The Magic of Gaia DR3" was held. A wealth of research was presented at this symposium making use of Gaia's latest data releases. More details were presented on the expected contents of Gaia's Focused Product Release as well, expected on 10 October 2023. The presentations of this symposium are now online from the webpage of the "Great Plenary Meeting: PM16 / EAS Science Symposium S3".

 

Did you know...

  • There is an ESA YouTube channel featuring many Gaia videos. The Gaia videos can most easily be found using the Gaia playlist.
  • There is a Gaia mission youtube channel featuring many Gaia videos? At the moment this channel is complementary to the videos posted on the ESA YouTube channel.
  • That some Gaia videos can also be accessed from the ESA multimedia page.
  • That some Gaia videos can be found from the Gaia Cosmos video page. More videos will be added to this page soon.
  • That you can find GIFs related to the Gaia mission from this location
  • That Gaia has a twitter channel @ESAGaia​​​​​​

 

Gaia PhD theses

A list of PhD theses related to Gaia can be found on this page. Newest additions to this page are:

Year Name Title Institute Country Supervisor
2023 Chornay, Nicholas Probing Late Stages of Stellar Evolution with Gaia-selected Planetary Nebulae University of Cambridge United Kingdom Nicholas Walton

 

Gaia peer-reviewed publications

Gaia's peer-reviewed publications are available from this ADS library. In the almost 10 years since launch and the almost 7 years since Gaia's first data was released, over 8800 papers were published either making direct use of Gaia data, predicting results from the Gaia mission, or describing the Gaia mission, its instruments, operations, software, or calibration.

 

Gaia Archive upgraded to version 3.3.2

The Gaia Archive has been further improved with an enhanced compliance with the ADQL 2.1 standard, extra visualisation panels for the MCMC MSC and MCMC GSP-Phot products in the Single Object Tool functionality along with a download data button, improved access to the DPAC documentation from the catalogue tooltips in the tables tree from the Gaia Archive Web Interface, improved handling of tables having variable-length arrays in the TAP service, and much more. Full release notes are accessible here.