Essays on Gaia

Identifying stars which have escaped from open clusters since their birth is important in clarifying many details of the underlying star formation and evolution processes. A recent study combines the Gaia data with stellar rotational data from TESS, to more securely identify young escaping members of the Pleiades out to larger distances than has been possible using the Gaia data alone.

​

​

Multi-epoch photometry can identify the rotation period and spin-axis direction of solar system bodies. A gap in the period-diameter diagram of asteroids reveals a concentration of short-period `tumblers', those rotating in a non-principal axis state. A recent Gaia study provides a detailed model of the underlying physics: how they got into a tumbling state, and their distribution in the period-diameter diagram.

A puzzling feature of the known hypervelocity stars is their particular distribution on the sky. A recent Gaia DR3 study provides an explanation: such stars originate both from the supermassive black hole at our Galaxy's centre, as well as from a supermassive black hole in the LMC, whose observed population is boosted by the LMC's orbital motion.

​

Ultra-metal-poor stars are those considered to have the lowest metal abundances of all stars known today, [Fe/H] < -4. They are believed to be the direct descendants of the earliest (Population III) stars which came into existence after the Big Bang. They are rare, with only some 50 examples known. Gaia is contributing to their characterisation... and has discovered another!

Recent simulations have shown that the three interstellar objects that have been found travelling through our solar system may be part of prominent streams of protoplanetary debris lost by their host stellar system hundreds of millions of years ago. Escaping from their host's Oort-type cloud, they move on Galactic orbits similar to that of their parent star.

Over the past decade, three interstellar objects have been found travelling through our solar system. They are believed to have been formed and ejected from the protoplanetary disks of extrasolar planetary systems far from the Sun. I detail how Gaia is assisting in understanding the origin and dynamical evolution of these remarkable discoveries.

Asteroid masses are primarily determined from mutual orbit perturbations, which can exploit asteroid-asteroid, asteroid-planet, and even asteroid-spacecraft perturbations. I review the knowledge of asteroid masses pre-Gaia, and show how the various Gaia data releases are allowing improved mass estimates for many more of these solar system objects.

The existence of supermassive black holes is implicit in various scientific areas being impacted by Gaia, including tidal disruption events which result from the tidal disruption of a star as it passes close to a supermassive black hole. The recent discovery of the highest-known luminosity transient events points to the disruption of intermediate-mass stars onto particularly massive black holes.

Actinide-boost stars are a subset of stars enhanced with r-process elements. They display an over-abundance of actinide elements, characterised by the thorium/europium [Th/Eu] ratio. The availability of the Gaia DR3 distances and proper motions is providing some remarkable new insights into the physical mechanisms underlying the r-process enhancements, and the origin of the actinide-boost stars.

A new determination of astrophysical parameters from a recalibration of the 220 million BP/RP spectra made available in Data Release 3 has extended the training set to emphasise pre-main sequence stars. An analysis of the resulting sky distribution of young stars has identified a new young association, Ophion, which appears to be in the process of its rapid and complete disruption.

The Beta Cephei variables are the most massive pulsating stars on the main sequence, and are an important class for asteroseismology investigations. Recent studies have shown that the sparsely sampled Gaia photometry is nevertheless exceptionally accurate for detecting their dominant and secondary frequencies. I look at how these studies are furthering our understanding of their fundamental properties, and their detailed physics.

Recent studies of interstellar extinction, based on Gaia DR3 distances and low-resolution BP/RP spectra, have provided a substantial advance in mapping the total-to-selective extinction for 130 million lines of sight throughout our Galaxy. Their analysis throws new light on the processes of accretion and coagulation that are responsible for the growth of dust grains in the interstellar medium.

The occurrence of multiple stellar populations in globular clusters has been described as one of the most puzzling open issues of stellar astrophysics. I describe the problem, and demonstrate how the combination of Gaia's astrometry, and the synthetic photometry derived from its low-resolution BP/RP spectra, is helping to identify its origin.

The class of ultra-faint dwarf galaxies, the first of which were discovered only in 2005, represent the faintest, oldest, most metal-poor, and most dark-matter-dominated end of the dwarf galaxy spectrum. Providing important tests of LambdaCDM cosmology, Gaia is helping to refine their membership, clarify their morphologies (including evidence for tidal disruption), and define their orbits and orbital histories.

Today, NASA's Exoplanet Archive lists almost 6000 confirmed exoplanets. There are only five astrometric discoveries amongst them, with one found from VLT-FORS, and one from radio VLBA. The first Gaia astrometric discovery, HIP 66074, was reported in 2023. Here I describe the two latest discoveries, Gaia 4b and Gaia 5b. And I explain why the numbers discovered with Gaia are still rather small.

Delta Scuti variables are a common class of pulsating star located at the intersection of the instability strip with the main sequence, showing a rich variety of pulsation behaviour. Gaia-enabled studies are being used to characterise their period-luminosity relation as a function of pulsation mode and metallicity. And a long-standing question being advanced by Gaia is why many of the stars in the Delta Scuti instability strip do not pulsate.

I describe the latest Gaia-based studies of the classical dwarf spheroidal galaxies of the Local Group. Gaia DR3 is being used to derive improved orbits and orbital histories, and these are shown to link to associated star formation bursts at they approach pericentre. There are new studies of their structure, internal kinematics, and bulk rotation, and of their associated globular cluster systems.

The Oosterhoff dichotomy is a long-standing problem in the understanding of Galactic globular clusters. It refers to the fact that clusters divide into two distinct groups according to the average period of their RR Lyrae stars pulsating in the fundamental mode. I outline the problem, and show how Gaia is advancing our knowledge, relating it to the ancient merger debris in our Galaxy's halo.

I described Gaia's early contributions to the study of RR Lyrae stars in an earlier essay at the end of 2021. Here I bring the topic up-to-date with the results from DR3. Based on its 270,000 classified objects, applications include further constraints on the period-luminosity relation, various studies of Galactic structure, and improved inputs to stellar evolutionary models.

I described Gaia's early contributions to the study of Cepheids in an earlier essay at the end of 2021. Here I bring the topic up-to-date with the results from DR3. Based on its 15,000 classified Cepheids, important applications have been improved assignment to their membership of open clusters, updates of the period-luminosity relation, and various studies of Galactic structure.

I am in the process of converting my written Gaia essays into audio format using the powerful technology of generative AI. I am using Google's NotebookLM to create an audio discussion-type dialogue between two avatars. The results, placed on my YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/@GaiaEssays) are comprehensive, accurate, didactic, and engaging.

A remarkable subset of the binary star ellipsoidal variables are the so-called heartbeat stars, named in view the resemblance of their light curves to an electrocardiogram. I outline the discovery journey, the physics underlying the phenomenon, and the role that Gaia can play in their understanding.

Distances can be determined to Local Group disk galaxies using the `rotational parallax'. For a system in uniform bulk rotation, equating the rotation amplitude from proper motions to that from radial velocities fixes the distance. I describe the cosmological relevance, and the current status for M31 and M33.

A curious and unexpected discovery are the thousands of filamentary stellar structures in the solar neighbourhood, referred to as strings (or snakes), and multiple orbitally coherent clusters referred to as pearls. The strings appear to be coherent in terms of their spatial and kinematic distribution, and age.

Gaia results support a hierarchical picture of star formation, in which stars are formed across a continuous density distribution throughout molecular clouds, and in which OB associations are formed in situ as relatively large-scale and gravitationally-unbound structures.

The substantial improvement in the definition of the colour–magnitude diagrams of nearby open clusters is leading to improved definition of their main sequence, the detailed structure of the extended turnoff region, the origin of blue stragglers, and the evolutionary history of white dwarfs.

Gaia's improved membership and astrometry of open clusters is providing detailed insights into their Galactic orbits, their bulk rotation and expansion, the tidal tails formed by their escaping members, and their binary population evolution and mass segregation.

The ages of open cluster are generally obtained by comparing their colour–magnitude diagrams to theoretical isochrones. I look at our present understanding of their ages, and how other dating methods (based on lithium depletion, gyrochronology, dynamical traceback, and asteroseismology) compare.

Of the 3000 open clusters catalogued pre-Gaia, nearly two thirds have now been shown to be chance overdensities, while Gaia's census today lists around 14,000. I describe how open clusters are distributed throughout our Galaxy, how they relate to the spiral arms, and the interesting class of binary clusters.

The biggest stars have radii some 1500 times that of the Sun. Although extremely luminous, their detection poses a number of challenges, and their large distances make them difficult to characterise. I explain their importance for understanding stellar evolution, and the ways in which Gaia is contributing.

I explain how a global offset of the Gaia parallaxes arises. And I describe the investigations carried out to identify and characterise the nature of such a `zero-point' offset, both for Gaia DR2 and (E)DR3. In practice, the offset is a non-trivial function of magnitude, colour, and sky coordinate.

Compared to the few hundred stellar diameters directly measured with an accuracy of 1-2 percent, Gaia's distances and stellar parameters are providing diameters, of somewhat lower accuracy, for some 500 million stars. One consequence is for the improved radius estimates for several thousand transiting exoplanets.

I review Gaia's contribution to supermassive and intermediate-mass black holes, and focus on the latest discoveries of black holes in wide, non-interacting binary systems, through the astrometric motion of their companion star. The three systems Gaia~BH1, BH2, and BH3 provide some deep insights into their formation and evolution.

I continue the theme of my previous essay, and look how Gaia is contributing to the calibration and pointing of the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes, and ESA's satellite missions operated at ESOC. I look also at just a few examples from ground-based telescopes, including SAAO, SDSS, and WHT.

Gaia is making substantial contributions to the improved calibration and pointing of ground- and space-based telescopes. Here, I look first at what is now largely consigned to history - how the first space astrometry positions from Hipparcos were applied to the calibration of photographic plates and meridian circles.

Gaia has recently identified 55 massive runaway stars in the young cluster R136 in the LMC, increasing the known number by an order of magnitude. They fall into two groups, an isotropic sample ejected soon after the cluster's birth, and 16 ejected in a preferentially northern direction. I discuss the interpretation, and the cosmological significance.

In just two days from today, on 15 January 2025, the Gaia satellite will cease its science operations. More than 10 years of spectacular astrometric (and related) observations of unprecedented accuracy, number, and magnitude range, will come to an end. I'll provide some details.

The challenges in searching for extraterrestrial intelligence are compounded by the multiple dimensions of potential search space. The problem can be simplified if the task is considered of mutual interest to both parties. In that case, appeal can be made to `game theory' to establish more efficient search strategies.

I will end this fourth year of my weekly essays on Gaia with some of the positive words that have appeared in the scientific literature about the mission’s advances. I hope they make enjoyable reading, especially for those involved in Hipparcos or Gaia.

In my previous essay, I gave an overview of the many scientific areas being impacted by Gaia, divided into five categories: solar system; the photometry and RVS spectra; stellar physics; Galaxy structure and dynamics; and cosmology. Here, I will say more on some of the highlights to date.

I give a concise ‘run through’ of the scientific areas impacted by Gaia so far. I divide this into five categories: solar system; applications of the photometry and radial velocity spectrometer (RVS) spectra; stellar physics; Galaxy structure and dynamics; and local group and cosmology.

Tidal disruption events, or TDEs, result from a star passing sufficiently close to a supermassive black hole that tidal forces overcome its self-gravity. Predicted 50 years ago, some 100 such events are now known. The Gaia science alerts system has discovered 25, and I will describe what is known about the two brightest, Gaia19bvo and Gaia19eks.

I look here at two other interesting microlens systems discovered by means of the science alerts pipeline: Gaia19dke, a long-duration single-lens event but with multiple peaks, and Gaia19bld, an event in which rotating arc-like images have been spatially resolved for the first time.

AM CVn systems are a rare class of compact interacting binaries, distinguished from other cataclysmic variables by the absence of hydrogen in their spectra, and affected by the poorly modelled process of common envelope evolution. The 5th Gaia alerts object, Gaia14aae, is only the third known eclipsing AM CVn system, and the first in which the white dwarf is fully eclipsed.

Of nearly 6000 exoplanets known today, only two have been discovered so far by Gaia, both from transit photometry. Some 200 of the known planets are microlensing discoveries. A new Gaia microlens planet has recently been reported. Discovered from the Gaia science alerts, it has a number of interesting features that I will expand on here.

I introduced the topic of Gaia's Science Alerts in essay 36 (Sep 2021), when the archive contained some 5000 classified sources. Today, it lists more than 25,000 events (more than 10 a day), with 7000 assigned to 23 classes. I describe some of these interesting objects: including exotic supernovae, tidal disruption events, and Gaia's first microlensing planet.

YSOs represent the earliest stages of star formation, with the term embracing the protostar and subsequent pre-main-sequence phases. The variability analysis as part of Data Release 3 has identified 80,000 YSO candidates (40,000 new), while the Science Alerts pipeline is discovering more of the rare FU Ori and EXor accretion-driven outburst events.