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GaiaNIR - A future all-sky astrometry mission

Hobbs, David LU orcid and Høg, Erik (2017) In Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union 12(S330). p.67-70
Abstract

With the launch of Gaia in December 2013, Europe entered a new era of space astrometry following in the footsteps of the very successful Hipparcos mission. A weakness of Gaia is that it only operates at optical wavelengths. However, much of the Galactic centre and the spiral arm regions are obscured by interstellar extinction. An obvious improvement on Gaia is to include the Near-Infra-Red (NIR) which requires the use of new types of detectors. Additionally, to scan the entire sky and measure global absolute parallaxes the spacecraft must have a constant rotation resulting in a moving image that must be compensated for by, for example, operating the detectors in Time Delayed Integration (TDI) mode. If these technical issues can be... (More)

With the launch of Gaia in December 2013, Europe entered a new era of space astrometry following in the footsteps of the very successful Hipparcos mission. A weakness of Gaia is that it only operates at optical wavelengths. However, much of the Galactic centre and the spiral arm regions are obscured by interstellar extinction. An obvious improvement on Gaia is to include the Near-Infra-Red (NIR) which requires the use of new types of detectors. Additionally, to scan the entire sky and measure global absolute parallaxes the spacecraft must have a constant rotation resulting in a moving image that must be compensated for by, for example, operating the detectors in Time Delayed Integration (TDI) mode. If these technical issues can be solved a new Gaia-like mission separated by a 20 year interval would give; 1) NIR all-sky astrometry and photometry to penetrate the obscured regions and to observe intrinsically red objects with almost diffraction limited resolution; 2) improved proper motions with fourteen times smaller errors than from Gaia alone opening up new science cases, such as long period exoplanets and accurate halo measurements; 3) allow the slowly degrading accuracy of the Gaia reference frame, which will be the basis for future astronomical measurements, to be reset.

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author
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organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Astrometry, Catalogs, Galaxy: kinematics and dynamics, Reference systems
in
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union
volume
12
issue
S330
pages
4 pages
publisher
Cambridge University Press
external identifiers
  • scopus:85054126276
ISSN
1743-9213
DOI
10.1017/S1743921317005348
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
a20bbb34-08d7-42b1-a41e-9b42bcf21d2f
date added to LUP
2018-10-31 12:49:41
date last changed
2024-03-02 10:31:20
@article{a20bbb34-08d7-42b1-a41e-9b42bcf21d2f,
  abstract     = {{<p>With the launch of Gaia in December 2013, Europe entered a new era of space astrometry following in the footsteps of the very successful Hipparcos mission. A weakness of Gaia is that it only operates at optical wavelengths. However, much of the Galactic centre and the spiral arm regions are obscured by interstellar extinction. An obvious improvement on Gaia is to include the Near-Infra-Red (NIR) which requires the use of new types of detectors. Additionally, to scan the entire sky and measure global absolute parallaxes the spacecraft must have a constant rotation resulting in a moving image that must be compensated for by, for example, operating the detectors in Time Delayed Integration (TDI) mode. If these technical issues can be solved a new Gaia-like mission separated by a 20 year interval would give; 1) NIR all-sky astrometry and photometry to penetrate the obscured regions and to observe intrinsically red objects with almost diffraction limited resolution; 2) improved proper motions with fourteen times smaller errors than from Gaia alone opening up new science cases, such as long period exoplanets and accurate halo measurements; 3) allow the slowly degrading accuracy of the Gaia reference frame, which will be the basis for future astronomical measurements, to be reset.</p>}},
  author       = {{Hobbs, David and Høg, Erik}},
  issn         = {{1743-9213}},
  keywords     = {{Astrometry; Catalogs; Galaxy: kinematics and dynamics; Reference systems}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{04}},
  number       = {{S330}},
  pages        = {{67--70}},
  publisher    = {{Cambridge University Press}},
  series       = {{Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union}},
  title        = {{GaiaNIR - A future all-sky astrometry mission}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1743921317005348}},
  doi          = {{10.1017/S1743921317005348}},
  volume       = {{12}},
  year         = {{2017}},
}