Combining the precise parallaxes and optical photometry delivered by Gaia’s second data release with the photometric catalogues of Pan-STARRS1, 2MASS, and AllWISE, we derived Bayesian stellar ...parameters, distances, and extinctions for 265 million of the 285 million objects brighter than G = 18. Because of the wide wavelength range used, our results substantially improve the accuracy and precision of previous extinction and effective temperature estimates. After cleaning our results for both unreliable input and output data, we retain 137 million stars, for which we achieve a median precision of 5% in distance, 0.20 mag in V-band extinction, and 245 K in effective temperature for G ≤ 14, degrading towards fainter magnitudes (12%, 0.20 mag, and 245 K at G = 16; 16%, 0.23 mag, and 260 K at G = 17, respectively). We find a very good agreement with the asteroseismic surface gravities and distances of 7000 stars in the Kepler, K2-C3, and K2-C6 fields, with stellar parameters from the APOGEE survey, and with distances to star clusters. Our results are available through the ADQL query interface of the Gaia mirror at the Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam (gaia.aip.de) and as binary tables at data.aip.de. As a first application, we provide distance- and extinction-corrected colour-magnitude diagrams, extinction maps as a function of distance, and extensive density maps. These demonstrate the potential of our value-added dataset for mapping the three-dimensional structure of our Galaxy. In particular, we see a clear manifestation of the Galactic bar in the stellar density distributions, an observation that can almost be considered direct imaging of the Galactic bar.
The assembly of our Galaxy can be reconstructed using the motions and chemistry of individual stars
. Chemo-dynamical studies of the stellar halo near the Sun have indicated the presence of multiple ...components
, such as streams
and clumps
, as well as correlations between the stars' chemical abundances and orbital parameters
. Recently, analyses of two large stellar surveys
revealed the presence of a well populated elemental abundance sequence
, two distinct sequences in the colour-magnitude diagram
and a prominent, slightly retrograde kinematic structure
in the halo near the Sun, which may trace an important accretion event experienced by the Galaxy
. However, the link between these observations and their implications for Galactic history is not well understood. Here we report an analysis of the kinematics, chemistry, age and spatial distribution of stars that are mainly linked to two major Galactic components: the thick disk and the stellar halo. We demonstrate that the inner halo is dominated by debris from an object that at infall was slightly more massive than the Small Magellanic Cloud, and which we refer to as Gaia-Enceladus. The stars that originate in Gaia-Enceladus cover nearly the full sky, and their motions reveal the presence of streams and slightly retrograde and elongated trajectories. With an estimated mass ratio of four to one, the merger of the Milky Way with Gaia-Enceladus must have led to the dynamical heating of the precursor of the Galactic thick disk, thus contributing to the formation of this component approximately ten billion years ago. These findings are in line with the results of galaxy formation simulations, which predict that the inner stellar halo should be dominated by debris from only a few massive progenitors
.
Gaia Data Release 2 Luri, X.; Brown, A. G. A.; Sarro, L. M. ...
Astronomy and astrophysics (Berlin),
08/2018, Letnik:
616
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Context.
The second
Gaia
data release (
Gaia
DR2) provides precise five-parameter astrometric data (positions, proper motions, and parallaxes) for an unprecedented number of sources (more than 1.3 ...billion, mostly stars). This new wealth of data will enable the undertaking of statistical analysis of many astrophysical problems that were previously infeasible for lack of reliable astrometry, and in particular because of the lack of parallaxes. However, the use of this wealth of astrometric data comes with a specific challenge: how can the astrophysical parameters of interest be properly inferred from these data?
Aims.
The main focus of this paper, but not the only focus, is the issue of the estimation of distances from parallaxes, possibly combined with other information. We start with a critical review of the methods traditionally used to obtain distances from parallaxes and their shortcomings. Then we provide guidelines on how to use parallaxes more efficiently to estimate distances by using Bayesian methods. In particular we also show that negative parallaxes, or parallaxes with relatively large uncertainties still contain valuable information. Finally, we provide examples that show more generally how to use astrometric data for parameter estimation, including the combination of proper motions and parallaxes and the handling of covariances in the uncertainties.
Methods.
The paper contains examples based on simulated
Gaia
data to illustrate the problems and the solutions proposed. Furthermore, the developments and methods proposed in the paper are linked to a set of tutorials included in the
Gaia
archive documentation that provide practical examples and a good starting point for the application of the recommendations to actual problems. In all cases the source code for the analysis methods is provided.
Results.
Our main recommendation is to always treat the derivation of (astro-)physical parameters from astrometric data, in particular when parallaxes are involved, as an inference problem which should preferably be handled with a full Bayesian approach.
Conclusions.
Gaia
will provide fundamental data for many fields of astronomy. Further data releases will provide more data, and more precise data. Nevertheless, to fully use the potential it will always be necessary to pay careful attention to the statistical treatment of parallaxes and proper motions. The purpose of this paper is to help astronomers find the correct approach.
We present a study of the three dimensional structure, kinematics, and age distribution of the Orion OB association, based on the second data release of the Gaia satellite (Gaia DR2). Our goal is to ...obtain a complete picture of the star formation history of the Orion complex and to relate our findings to theories of sequential and triggered star formation. We selected the Orion population with simple photometric criteria, and we constructed a three dimensional map in galactic Cartesian co-ordinates to study the physical arrangement of the stellar clusters in the Orion region. The map shows structures that extend for roughly 150 pc along the line of sight, divided in multiple sub-clusters. We separated different groups by using the density-based clustering algorithm DBSCAN. We studied the kinematic properties of all the groups found by DBSCAN first by inspecting their proper motion distribution, and then by applying a kinematic modelling code based on an iterative maximum likelihood approach, which we used to derive their mean velocity, velocity dispersion, and isotropic expansion. We derived ages and extinction values for all the groups by using an isochrone fitting procedure. We confirm the presence of an old population (∼15 Myr) towards the 25 Ori region, and we find that groups with ages of 12 − 15 Myr are present also towards the Belt region. We notice the presence of a population of ∼10 Myr also in front of the Orion A molecular cloud. Our findings suggest that star formation in Orion does not follow a simple sequential scenario, but instead consists of multiple events, which caused kinematic and physical sub-structure. To fully explain the detailed sequence of events, specific simulations and further radial velocity data are needed.
ABSTRACT
We search for the fastest stars in the subset of stars with radial velocity measurements of the second data release (DR2) of the European Space Agency mission Gaia. Starting from the ...observed positions, parallaxes, proper motions, and radial velocities, we construct the distance and total velocity distribution of more than 7 million stars in our Milky Way, deriving the full 6D phase space information in Galactocentric coordinates. These information are shared in a catalogue, publicly available at http://home.strw.leidenuniv.nl/~marchetti/research.html. To search for unbound stars, we then focus on stars with a probability greater than $50 $ per cent of being unbound from the Milky Way. This cut results in a clean sample of 125 sources with reliable astrometric parameters and radial velocities. Of these, 20 stars have probabilities greater than 80 per cent of being unbound from the Galaxy. On this latter subsample, we perform orbit integration to characterize the stars’ orbital parameter distributions. As expected given the relatively small sample size of bright stars, we find no hypervelocity star candidates, stars that are moving on orbits consistent with coming from the Galactic Centre. Instead, we find seven hyperrunaway star candidates, coming from the Galactic disc. Surprisingly, the remaining 13 unbound stars cannot be traced back to the Galaxy, including two of the fastest stars (around 700 km s−1). If conformed, these may constitute the tip of the iceberg of a large extragalactic population or the extreme velocity tail of stellar streams.
Stocks of soil organic carbon represent a large component of the carbon cycle that may participate in climate change feedbacks, particularly on decadal and centennial timescales. For Earth system ...models (ESMs), the ability to accurately represent the global distribution of existing soil carbon stocks is a prerequisite for accurately predicting future carbon-climate feedbacks. We compared soil carbon simulations from 11 model centers to empirical data from the Harmonized World Soil Database (HWSD) and the Northern Circumpolar Soil Carbon Database (NCSCD). Model estimates of global soil carbon stocks ranged from 510 to 3040 Pg C, compared to an estimate of 1260 Pg C (with a 95% confidence interval of 890-1660 Pg C) from the HWSD. Model simulations for the high northern latitudes fell between 60 and 820 Pg C, compared to 500 Pg C (with a 95% confidence interval of 380-620 Pg C) for the NCSCD and 290 Pg C for the HWSD. Global soil carbon varied 5.9 fold across models in response to a 2.6-fold variation in global net primary productivity (NPP) and a 3.6-fold variation in global soil carbon turnover times. Model-data agreement was moderate at the biome level (R super(2) values ranged from 0.38 to 0.97 with a mean of 0.75); however, the spatial distribution of soil carbon simulated by the ESMs at the 1 degree scale was not well correlated with the HWSD (Pearson correlation coefficients less than 0.4 and root mean square errors from 9.4 to 20.8 kg C m super(-2)). In northern latitudes where the two data sets overlapped, agreement between the HWSD and the NCSCD was poor (Pearson correlation coefficient 0.33), indicating uncertainty in empirical estimates of soil carbon. We found that a reduced complexity model dependent on NPP and soil temperature explained much of the 1 degree spatial variation in soil carbon within most ESMs (R super(2) values between 0.62 and 0.93 for 9 of 11 model centers). However, the same reduced complexity model only explained 10% of the spatial variation in HWSD soil carbon when driven by observations of NPP and temperature, implying that other drivers or processes may be more important in explaining observed soil carbon distributions. The reduced complexity model also showed that differences in simulated soil carbon across ESMs were driven by differences in simulated NPP and the parameterization of soil heterotrophic respiration (inter-model R super(2) = 0.93), not by structural differences between the models. Overall, our results suggest that despite fair global-scale agreement with observational data and moderate agreement at the biome scale, most ESMs cannot reproduce grid-scale variation in soil carbon and may be missing key processes. Future work should focus on improving the simulation of driving variables for soil carbon stocks and modifying model structures to include additional processes.
We investigate individual distances and luminosities of a sample of 889 nearby candidate red supergiants (RSGs) with reliable parallaxes (ϖ/ ϖ > 4 and RUWE < 2.7) from Gaia Data Release 2 (DR2). The ...sample was extracted from the historical compilation of spectroscopically derived spectral types by Skiff, and consists of K-M stars that are listed with class I at least once. The sample includes well-known RSGs from Humphreys, Elias et al., Jura & Kleinmann, and Levesque et al. Infrared and optical measurements from the Two Micron All Sky Survey, Catalog of Infrared Observations (CIO), Midcourse Space Experiment, Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, MIPSGAL, Galactic Legacy Infrared Midplane Extraordinaire (GLIMPSE), and The Naval Observatory Merged Astrometric Dataset catalogs allow us to estimate the stellar bolometric magnitudes. We analyze the stars in the luminosity versus effective temperature plane and confirm that 43 sources are highly probably RSGs with M bol < −7.1 mag. Of the stars in the sample, 43% have masses >7 M . Another 30% of the sample consists of giant stars.
Abstract
Direct evidence of ancient human occupation is typically established through archaeological excavation. Excavations are costly and destructive, and practically impossible in some lake and ...wetland environments. We present here an alternative approach, providing direct evidence from lake sediments using DNA metabarcoding, steroid lipid biomarkers (bile acids) and from traditional environmental analyses. Applied to an early Medieval Celtic settlement in Ireland (a crannog) this approach provides a site chronology and direct evidence of human occupation, crops, animal farming and on-site slaughtering. This is the first independently-dated, continuous molecular archive of human activity from an archeological site, demonstrating a link between animal husbandry, food resources, island use. These sites are under threat but are impossible to preserve in-situ so this approach can be used, with or without excavation, to produce a robust and full site chronology and provide direct evidence of occupation, the use of plants and animals, and activities such as butchery.
PDF
