Gaia Early Data Release 3: Summary of the contents and survey properties
Gaia Collaboration, A.G.A Brown, A. Vallenari, T. Prusti, J.H.J. de, Bruijne, C. Babusiaux, M. Biermann, O.L. Creevey, D.W. Evans, L. Eyer, A., Hutton, F. Jansen, C. Jordi, S.A. Klioner, U. Lammers, L. Lindegren, X. Luri,, F. Mignard, C. Panem, D. Pourbaix, S. Randich

TL;DR
Gaia EDR3 provides highly precise astrometry and photometry for 1.8 billion sources, significantly improving data quality and homogeneity over previous releases, enabling advanced astronomical research.
Contribution
This release offers a major enhancement in data accuracy, systematic error reduction, and a more robust source list, advancing Gaia's celestial reference frame and data quality.
Findings
Parallax precisions increased by 30%
Proper motion precisions doubled
Systematic errors reduced by 30-40%
Abstract
We present the early installment of the third Gaia data release, Gaia EDR3, consisting of astrometry and photometry for 1.8 billion sources brighter than magnitude 21, complemented with the list of radial velocities from Gaia DR2. Gaia EDR3 contains celestial positions and the apparent brightness in G for approximately 1.8 billion sources. For 1.5 billion of those sources, parallaxes, proper motions, and the (G_BP-G_RP) colour are also available. The passbands for G, G_BP, and G_RP are provided as part of the release. For ease of use, the 7 million radial velocities from Gaia DR2 are included in this release, after the removal of a small number of spurious values. New radial velocities will appear as part of Gaia DR3. Finally, Gaia EDR3 represents an updated materialisation of the celestial reference frame (CRF) in the optical, the Gaia-CRF3, which is based solely on extragalactic…
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