On October 10th, the European Space Agency (ESA) released several reports. intermediate data From almost a decade of Gaia missions. The data includes the locations of 500,000 new faint stars in giant star clusters, more than 380 potential cosmic lenses, and more than 150,000 asteroids in our solar system.
[Related: See the stars from the Milky Way mapped as a dazzling rainbow.]
Launched in December 2013, Gaia is an astronomical spacecraft with a mission to generate accurate stellar censuses and map the galaxy and beyond. A more detailed understanding of Earth’s position in the universe could lead to a deeper understanding of the diverse celestial bodies that make up the known universe.
500,000 new stars and cluster cores
In 2022, Gaia’s third data release (DR3) includes data on more than 1.8 billion stars, building a fairly complete view of the Milky Way galaxy and beyond. Even with all this data, there were still gaps in ESA mapping. Gaia had not yet fully explored the regions of the sky where stars were particularly dense, and was looking down on stars that were slightly less bright than their neighbors.
An important example of this is globular clusters. These are some of the oldest objects in the known universe, making them particularly valuable for looking back at the universe’s past. But its bright core can overwhelm telescopes trying to get a clear view.
Gaia selected Omega Centauri Help fill in the gaps in the star map. Omega Centauri is the largest globular cluster visible from Earth and is a good example of one of the galaxy’s more “typical” star clusters. Gaia has enabled a special mode that actually maps a wider area of the sky surrounding the center of a star cluster each time it comes into view.
“At Omega Centauri, we discovered more than 500,000 new stars in just one star cluster that Gaia had never seen before.” ) astrophysicist Katja Winegrill stated in a statement. “We didn’t expect to use this for science, which makes this result even more interesting.”
This data also allowed the research team to detect new stars that were too close to measure properly.
“Using the new data to study the structure of the cluster, how its constituent stars are distributed, how they move, and more, we will create a complete large-scale map of Omega Centauri. “We are taking full advantage of Gaia’s potential and we have deployed this amazing cosmic tool at maximum power,” says study co-author and AIP astrophysicist Alexei Mintz. . stated in a statement.
The 500,000 new stars showed that Omega Centauri is one of the most crowded regions Gaia has ever explored.
Currently, Gaia is Explore 8 more regions using the same technology. The scoop from these explorations will be included in Gaia Data Release 4. This should help astronomers truly understand what’s going on inside these cosmic building blocks and more accurately ascertain the ages of galaxies.
Gravitational lens spotting
Gravitational lensing occurs when the image of a distant object in space is distorted by an interfering mass, such as a galaxy or star, between the observer and the object. The central mass acts like a giant lens that can magnify the brightness of the light and project multiple images of distant light sources into the sky.
[Related: Gravitational Lens Splits Supernova’s Light 4 Different Ways.]
“Gaia is a true lens seeker,” said study co-author Christine Ducoulin, an astrophysicist at the Institute of Astrophysics in Bordeaux. stated in a statement. “Thanks to Gaia, we now know that some objects we see are not just stars, even if they resemble stars.”
Some of the objects here are not ordinary stars, but distant quasars. These quasars are extremely bright, high-energy galaxies driven by black holes. To date, he has discovered 381 candidates for Gaia lensed quasars. This is a “treasure trove” for cosmologists, Ducoulin said, and the largest set of candidates ever detected at once.
Lensed quasars are difficult to detect because the constituent image of the lens system can be frozen in the sky in a misleading way.
“The great thing about Gaia is that it’s visible everywhere, so you don’t have to know where to look to find the lens,” said study co-author and astrophysicist at the University of the Cote d’Azur. Laurent Gallucho says: said in a statement. “With this data release, Gaia becomes the first mission to achieve an all-sky survey of gravitational lenses in high resolution.”
Asteroids and the Milky Way
One of the studies included in this data release revealed approximately 156,823 additional asteroids and pinpointed their locations for nearly twice as long as the previous period. For the fourth Gaia data release, the team plans to complete the set and include a comet, a planetary moon, and an asteroid twice his size.
[Related: Smashed asteroid surrounded by a ‘cloud’ of boulders.]
Other research is mapping the Milky Way disk by tracking weak signals seen in starlight, faint traces of gas and dust floating between stars. The Gaia team has stacked up her 6 million spectra to study these signals, with the hope that the data will eventually allow scientists to narrow down the source of these signals.
“This data release further demonstrates the broad and fundamental value of Gaia, even on topics it was not originally designed to address,” said study co-author and ESA project scientist Timo Prusti. says Mr.stated in a statement. “Despite its primary focus on star surveyors, Gaia is a well-known quasar that has been imaged billions of light-years away, far beyond the edge of the Milky Way, from rocky bodies in our solar system. This mission is to provide a truly unique insight into the universe and the objects within it, and we are exploring everything from its broad, all-sky perspective to the surrounding sky. I am making full use of it.”
