Gaia: Transforming Stellar Astronomy (Abstract)

Volume 46 number 2 (2018)

Boris Gaensicke

Department of Physics, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, United Kingdom; Boris.Gaensicke@warwick.ac.uk

Abstract

(Abstract only) The only way to measure the distances to stars is via a geometric parallax, making use of the fact that the Earth orbits the Sun. Over a century of work on ground-based parallaxes was limited in reach to a few 100 pc, at best, and much of our understanding of stellar physics had to be based on proxy distance estimates. On April 25, 2018, the ESA Gaia mission unleashed space-based astrometric data for over 1.3 billion sources, transforming stellar astrophysics over lunch time. I will illustrate the quantum leap in stellar astronomy that these data enable, and will discuss how future large spectroscopic and photometric surveys will augment our understanding of stars both in quality and quantity.