The Gaia mission: the dawn of Astrometric Cosmology? Status and prospects after 14 months of science operations
Date Issued
2016
Abstract
The concept of precisely gauging a gravity-dominated Universe like ours through the individual observations of its fundamental constituents, the stars, immediately calls astrometry, the oldest quantitative specialty of astronomy, into play. Today, thanks to the launch of the Gaia satellite, astrometry has reached such levels to become a key player in the field of local cosmology and experimental gravitation. Updates on the status of the mission, orbiting in L2 since January 2014 and in nominal observation mode since July 2014, are presented. We also discuss how the astrometric observations from within the gravitational fields of the Solar System can uniquely probe possible deviations from General Relativity and how accurate absolute kinematics at the scale of the Milky Way can, for the first time in situ, account for the predictions of the CDM model for the formation of the Galactic halo.
Coverage
XIV International Conference on Topics in Astroparticle and Underground Physics (TAUP 2015)
Volume
718
Issue
3
Start page
032005
Conferenece
XIV International Conference on Topics in Astroparticle and Underground Physics (TAUP 2015)
Conferenece place
Torino, Italy
Conferenece date
7-11 September, 2015
Issn Identifier
1742-6588
Ads BibCode
2016JPhCS.718c2005S
Rights
open.access
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Loading...
Name
Spagna_2016_J._Phys. _Conf._Ser._718_032005.pdf
Description
Pdf editoriale
Size
1.3 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
5c4e830024d0d3cac6f138e186ab65d3