Astronomers struck today (December 3) with a huge wave of data from the European Space Agency Gaia Space Observatory.
Those researchers can now find the best-yet-ever map Milk Ganga, With detailed information about the position, distance and motion of 1.8 billion cosmic objects to help us better understand our place in the universe.
Martin Barstow, head of the physics and astronomy department at the University of Leicester, which is part of Gaia’s data processing team, said Gaia data is rotated like a tsunami by astrophysics. He was speaking at a Virtual News conference today, in which Georgia Buso, another Gaia researcher at the Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands, also told reporters that the data had “revolutionized” many areas. Astrophysics, From the study of the dynamics of galaxies such as the evolution of stars to the study of nearby objects such as asteroids in the solar system.
Photos: Gaia spacecraft to create a galaxy map
Gaia launched an unprecedented detailed galaxy map in December 2013. Billion 1 billion spacecraft are in orbit Lagrange-2, Or L2, point, about 1 million miles (1.5 million kilometers) away from Earth, where the gravitational balance between our planet and the Sun is balanced and the view of the sky is blocked. Gaia can measure about 100,000 stars per minute or 850 million objects per day, and scan the entire sky once every two months.
The latest data treaty improves the accuracy and scope of the previous two Gaia data sets, which were introduced in 2016 and 2018. For example, compared to the 2018 data, which includes measurements of 1.7 billion objects and objects, the 2020 data improves the accuracy of the data points by two factors for proper motion, or a clear change in the position of the star we see. Solar system.
“It really gives us an idea of how galaxies live,” said Nicholas Walton, an astronomer at the University of Cambridge who is part of Gaia’s science team. Science and News Conference. “We’re talking about billions of stars, which really gives us the ability to examine the entire population of the galaxy at a meaningful level, the study of which is similar to what you want to do with people.”
Walton said the census of the universe would be like having a tracker on everyone in the UK to map their location and monitor their health. “If everyone gets a tracker, we can tell you if they sweat. It’s something like this with the stars here: we can tell you which one is sweating, which one is active, which one is inactive, which one is dying. , The ones that will explode. “
Gaia’s data has been used in a wide range of applications over the last four years. This mission has helped researchers find A galaxy corpse That galaxy spotted 10 billion years ago 20 hypervelocity stars Unexpectedly zooming in towards the center of the galaxy, and identify about it 1,000 nearby stars Where people from the imaginary outside world will be able to see the signs of life on earth.
Closer to home, spacecraft scientists have allowed scientists to find previously unknown Asteroids, And also allowed NASA to be decisive because of its specific data, Last minute adjustment On the way to its New Horizon probe in 2018, to successfully swing the icy rock Aerocoth, the farthest and most primitive object in the solar system ever visited by a spacecraft.
About 1,600 studies have been published so far based on Gaia data, Bursto said. More precisely the result will come from today’s newly published material, Now available on ESA’s websiteBy the time the briefing for scientists and reporters was over, Vonton said he expected many scientists to pierce him already: “I think a lot of astronomers will leave this broadcast to work on the data.”
Some new Gaia data has already been used to use the search. A group of researchers led by scientists at Dresden University of Technology Using Gaia’s 1.6 million newly observed quarters as a reference reference, measured how our solar system gains momentum inside the galaxy, which looks very stable in space, much like a galaxy’s lighthouse.
The soldier system was measured to have a very slight acceleration towards the lactic center, as predicted by Thea or Wrist. Buso said this barely known acceleration has only become observable in these newly published Gaia data because “the accuracy of the measurement has increased drastically.”
Gary Gilmore, an astronomer and Gaia scientist at Cambridge University, said that “these super-accurate tests are necessary to” examine the limitations of fundamental physics “in the way the masses are distributed and accelerated. Such criteria can help scientists understand the nature of science Dark matter We know that is hidden in the whole universe.
“Even our own sun is moving so fast that if the whole galaxy hadn’t put the dark matter together, it would have blown away, and we have no idea what the dark matter is,” Gilmore said. “The hope is that by continuing the experiments on the line we’re doing – and making them more accurate, and doing them on different scales – we’ll be able to see if there are different types of dark matter.”
The third Gaia data set was to be released in 2022, but mission scientists have now decided to release preliminary data so that astronomers can use it sooner, with at least two data sets to be released in the coming years. The spacecraft will operate at least until 2022, but its target could be extended to 2025.
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