Mapping the stellar populations of the Milky Way with Gaia

TL;DR

Gaia is an upcoming ESA mission designed to map the entire sky with unprecedented astrometric precision, enabling detailed studies of the Milky Way's stellar populations and supporting exoplanet missions like CoRoT and Kepler.

Contribution

This paper describes the Gaia mission's capabilities and discusses its expected impact on Galactic stellar population research and related astronomical studies.

Findings

Gaia will measure about one billion sources with microarcsecond accuracy.

The mission will provide astrometry, spectrophotometry, and spectroscopy data.

Expected to significantly advance understanding of the Milky Way's structure.

Abstract

Gaia will be ESA's milestone astrometric mission, and is due for launch at the end of 2013. Gaia will repeatedly map the whole sky measuring about one billion sources to V=20-22 mag. Its data products will be {\mu}as accuracy astrometry, optical spectrophotometry and medium resolution spectroscopy. A description of the Gaia space mission and its characteristics and performance is given. The expected impact on Galactic stellar population studies is discussed, with particular attention to the sources of interest for CoRoT and Kepler.