Astronomy and astrophysics

Scanning space astrometry: An update on the Gaia project

by Lennart Lindegren (Lund)

Europe/Stockholm
FA31

FA31

Description
Gaia is the next astrophysics mission, scheduled to be launched by the European Space Agency in November 2012. The first part of my talk outlines the simple geometrical principles of scanning space astrometry as pioneered by Hipparcos (1989-93); the second part gives a status report on Gaia and the preparations for the scientific exploitation of its data.