Release of the 3rd data catalogue of Gaia mission
Gaia’s data release 3 contains new and improved details for almost two billion stars in the Milky Way
A team of astronomers and engineers from the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the Universitat de Barcelona (ICCUB) and the IEEC has been involved in the mission since its inception
On 13 June at 12 pm, the European Space Agency (ESA) has announced the third release of Gaia mission data, the so-called Data Release 3 (DR3). The catalogue published today contains new information including the light spectra of 220 million stars for the first time. These spectra give scientists information about the composition, temperature, mass, and age of the stars. Also included are more than 33 million stars with determinations of their radial velocities, that is, the speed at which they move away from or closer to us. Much of this information was revealed by the newly released spectroscopy data, a technique in which the starlight is split into its constituent colours (like a rainbow).
Also new in this data set is the largest catalogue yet of binary stars (with the positions, distances, orbits, and masses of more than 800,000 systems. Gaia DR3 also contains information on thousands of Solar System objects such as asteroids and moons of planets, and millions of galaxies and quasars outside the Milky Way.
All this information will offer astronomers an unprecedented perspective on the characteristics of stars and their life cycle, as well as the opportunity to deepen their knowledge of the structure and evolution of our Galaxy. This media kit prepared by ESA summarises the data in a series of infographics.
Artistic impression of the Milky Way, and on top of that an overlay showing the loca-
tion and densities of a young star sample from Gaia’s DR3 (in yellow-green). The “you
are here” sign points towards the Sun. Credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.
Researchers and engineers from Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC — Institut d'Estudis Espacials de Catalunya) at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the Universitat de Barcelona (ICCUB), leds by professors Carme Jordi, Xavier Luri and Francesca Figueras, from the Department of Quantum Physics and Astrophysics (UB), have participated in the mission from the beginning. Part of the software for processing the data sent by the satellite has been developed at the ICCUB and runs on the MareNostrum supercomputer of the Barcelona SuperComputer Center (BSC).
Team members also work on the scientific exploitation of data, in fields such as the study of the spiral structure of our galaxy; the identification of past interactions of the Milky Way with nearby galaxies, which are essential to know their evolution to the present day; open clusters, including the identification of some hitherto unknowns; or the study of the Magellanic Clouds, two small galaxies orbiting our galaxy.
About Gaia and the DR3 catalogue
The Gaia mission was launched in December 2013 with the aim of creating the most accurate and complete multi-dimensional map of the Milky Way. Since then, the satellite, which is located 1.5 million kilometres from the Earth in the opposite direction to the Sun—at the so-called Lagrange point L2—has been sweeping the sky with its two telescopes on board, obtaining data that allow astronomers to reconstruct our home galaxy’s structure and past evolution over billions of years, and to better understand the lifecycle of stars and our place in the Universe. Today, Gaia has been observing the sky for more than 2,850 days, collecting 100 TB of data, and observing 200,000 million star transits through its focal plane.
The Gaia DR3 catalogue builds upon the Early Data Release 3 (released on 3 December 2020) and combines, for the same stretch of time and the same set of observations, the same already-published data products, together with numerous new data such as extended objects and non-single stars. The data now being published was collected for 34 months, between 25 July 2014 and 28 May 2017.
From 13 June 2022, 12:00 CEST onwards, the new Gaia data will become available through the Gaia Archive (and through the partner data centres). A series of scientific papers describing the data and their validation process will appear in a special issue of the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Fuel consumption predicts the operation of Gaia until 2025. The publication of the final catalogue is scheduled for 2030.
Press release made in collaboration with the Communication Office of the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the Universitat de Barcelona (ICCUB) and based on ESA’s press release.
Main Image
Collage of 4 Gaia Sky maps
Caption: From left to right, and from top to bottom: 1. Radial velocities of more than 30 million objects in the Milky Way (mostly stars); 2. Radial velocities and proper motions along the line-of-sight; 3. Interstellar dust that fills the Milky Way; and 4. Chemical map showing the stellar metallicities.
Credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.
Links
– IEEC
– ICCUB
– Gaia mission
– DR3
More information
The Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC — Institut d’Estudis Espacials de Catalunya) promotes and coordinates space research and technology development in Catalonia for the benefit of society. IEEC fosters collaborations both locally and worldwide and is an efficient agent of knowledge, innovation and technology transfer. As a result of 25 years of high-quality research, done in collaboration with major international organisations, IEEC ranks among the best international research centers, focusing on areas such as: astrophysics, cosmology, planetary science, and Earth Observation. IEEC’s engineering division develops instrumentation for ground- and space-based projects, and has extensive experience in working with private or public organisations from the aerospace and other innovation sectors.
IEEC is a private non-profit foundation, governed by a Board of Trustees composed of Generalitat de Catalunya and four other institutions that each have a research unit, which together constitute the core of IEEC R&D activity: the Universitat de Barcelona (UB) with the research unit ICCUB — Institute of Cosmos Sciences; the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) with the research unit CERES — Center of Space Studies and Research; the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya · BarcelonaTech (UPC) with the research unit CTE — Research Group in Space Sciences and Technologies; the Spanish Research Council (CSIC) with the research unit ICE — Institute of Space Sciences. IEEC is a CERCA (Centres de Recerca de Catalunya) center.
Contacts
IEEC Communication Office
Barcelona, Spain
Ana Montaner and Rosa Rodríguez
E-mail: comunicacio@ieec.cat
Lead Researchers at IEEC
Barcelona, Spain
Carme Jordi
Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC)
Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the Universitat de Barcelona (ICCUB)
E-mail: jordi@ieec.cat, carme@fqa.ub.edu
Xavier Luri
Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC)
Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the Universitat de Barcelona (ICCUB)
E-mail: luri@ieec.cat, xluri@fqa.ub.edu