Pushing the limits of the Gaia space mission by analyzing galaxy morphology

TL;DR

This paper proposes a method to analyze galaxy morphology using Gaia space mission data, demonstrating the potential to extract detailed galaxy structures despite the mission's primary focus on point sources.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel analysis technique for extracting galaxy morphology from Gaia data, which was originally optimized for point sources.

Findings

Morphological analysis feasible at 0.2" resolution

Method effective on simulated low-resolution data

Potential for an all-sky galaxy survey

Abstract

The ESA Gaia mission, to be launched during 2013, will observe billions of objects, among which many galaxies, during its scanning of the sky. This will provide a large space-based dataset with unprecedented spatial resolution. Because of its natural Galactic and Astrometric priority, Gaia's observational strategy was optimized for point sources. Nonetheless, it is expected that 10^6 sources will be extragalactic, and a large portion of them will be angularly small galaxies. Although the mission was designed for point sources, a dedicated analysis of the raw data will allow the recovery of morphology of those objects at a 0.2" level. This may constitute a unique all-sky survey of such galaxies. We describe the conceptual design of the method we created for performing the morphological analysis of these objects as well as first results obtained from data simulations of low-resolution, highly binned, satellite data. Based on the obtained results we conclude that it is possible to push the limits of the Gaia space mission by analyzing galaxy morphology. (Abridged)