RAVE- First Results and Second Data Release

TL;DR

RAVE is a large-scale stellar survey measuring radial velocities and atmospheric parameters for up to a million stars, significantly advancing our understanding of the Milky Way's structure and formation.

Contribution

This paper presents the first scientific results and the second data release of the RAVE survey, providing an extensive and representative stellar kinematic database.

Findings

First scientific results from RAVE survey.

Second data release doubles previous data.

Provides atmospheric parameters for a large star sample.

Abstract

RAVE, the RAdial Velocity Experiment, is an ambitious program to conduct a survey to measure the radial velocities, metallicities and abundance ratios for up to a million stars using the 1.2-m UK Schmidt Telescope of the Anglo-Australian Observatory (AAO), over the period 2003 - 2010. The survey represents a giant leap forward in our understanding of our own Milky Way galaxy, providing a vast stellar kinematic database larger than any other survey proposed for this coming decade. The main data product will be a southern hemisphere survey of about a million stars. This survey would comprise 0.7 million thin disk main sequence stars, 250,000 thick disk stars, 100,000 bulge and halo stars, and a further 50,000 giant stars including some out to 10 kpc from the Sun. RAVE will offer the first truly representative inventory of stellar radial velocities for all major components of the Galaxy. Here we present the first scientific results of this survey as well as its second data release which doubles the number of previously released radial velocities. For the first time, the release also provides atmospheric parameters for a large fraction of the 2nd year data making it an unprecedented tool to study the formation of the Milky Way.