{"id":1497,"date":"2022-06-30T15:49:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-30T15:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/?p=1497"},"modified":"2025-02-26T13:37:27","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T13:37:27","slug":"gaia-data-release-3-new-space-data-serves-as-complete-step-change-in-understanding-of-our-universe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/2022\/06\/30\/gaia-data-release-3-new-space-data-serves-as-complete-step-change-in-understanding-of-our-universe\/","title":{"rendered":"Gaia Data Release 3: New space data serves as \u2018complete step change\u2019 in understanding of our Universe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong><em>Space scientists have today (Monday) announced the discovery of a \u2018super Jupiter\u2019 orbiting a white dwarf, the first detected using direct observations with the European Space Agency (ESA)\u2019s Gaia mission.<\/em><\/strong><br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Social stars\" width=\"620\" height=\"349\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/TPkjhXmW8k8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><br><br>The discovery forms part of a treasure trove of data made available in Gaia\u2019s Data Release 3, which provides the most detailed survey of our galactic neighbourhood to date.<br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Observations made by the Gaia observatory, which orbits a point in space about 1.5 million km from Earth, will allow astronomers to create the most accurate and complete multi-dimensional map of the Milky Way and better understand our place in the Universe.<br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Martin Barstow, Professor of Astrophysics and Space Science at the University of Leicester and Director of Strategic Partnerships for\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.space-park.co.uk\/\">Space Park Leicester<\/a>, is part of the Gaia collaboration to have co-authored multiple papers using the new data.<br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Other highlights of Data Release 3 include description of \u2018starquakes\u2019, stellar DNA and a new binary star catalogue of more than 800,000 binary systems. Before Gaia launched in 2013, only around 30,000 binaries were known in our galaxy.<br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Professor Barstow said: \u201cGaia data has been moving through astronomy like a tidal wave. It\u2019s the most productive observatory we have available to use right now, and it\u2019s transforming both astronomy and our understanding of the Universe.<br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis Data Release 3 is a complete step change. All the data we have catalogued using spectra \u2013 stellar distances, ages, composition, and more \u2013 adds an extra dimension to what we know about the stars in our galaxy, and represents a huge leap forward.\u201d<br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Data reveals a \u2018super Jupiter\u2019 companion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Observations of exoplanets orbiting white dwarfs is notoriously difficult. White dwarfs are the core remnant of stars not massive enough to become a black hole or neutron star.<br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, by analysing the motion of the metal-rich white dwarf WD 0141-675 and noting a \u2018wobble\u2019 in its orbit, researchers inferred the existence of a companion object with a mass around nine times that of Jupiter. Too small to be a star, this must be an exoplanet.<br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This \u2018super Jupiter\u2019 is only the third known exoplanet to orbit a white dwarf, and makes WD 0141-675 the closest white dwarf to Earth to host a planet.<br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Stars in their eyes: Gaia more than doubles number of known binaries<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Gaia\u2019s Data Release 3 also expands astronomers\u2019 understanding of binary systems, where two stars are gravitationally bound to one another. Sirius, the brightest star visible from Earth (after our Sun), is a binary system comprising a main sequence star, Sirius A, and a faint white dwarf companion, Sirius B.<br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These new datasets both refine the stellar catalogue of known binaries and add many more new such systems, bringing the total of known binary systems from around 300,000 before Data Release 3 to more than 800,000. Researchers detect binaries using Gaia\u2019s radial velocity spectrometer and a variety of techniques;<br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>astrometry: by detecting the motion of source objects which are not uniform and are observed to \u2018wobble\u2019 or otherwise change direction from what would otherwise be expected;<\/li><li>photometry: when aligned with Gaia\u2019s line of sight, where one star is observed to pass in front of another and periodically \u2018eclipse\u2019 its companion;<\/li><li>and spectroscopy: these binaries have a radial velocity that varies periodically, depending on whether a star approaches or recedes from our viewpoint at Earth.&nbsp;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><br><br>Professor Barstow continued: \u201cWe have so much more data on binaries with this release and, crucially, that data is so much more precise than what has gone before.<br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cOnce you have more precise data about a binary system you can work out all sorts of things such as ages and composition: all aspects we haven\u2019t had information on before.<br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAnd by answering those questions, we can start to understand more of the fundamentals about how our Universe works, including how stars live and die.\u201d<br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2018Gaia Data Release 3: Stellar multiplicity, a teaser for the hidden treasure \u2019 and \u2018Gaia Data Release 3: The Galaxy in your preferred colours. Synthetic photometry from Gaia low-resolution spectra \u2019 are among the papers published today (Monday) in the journal\u00a0<em>Astronomy &amp; Astrophysics<\/em>.<br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Find out more about ESA\u2019s Gaia mission and Data Release 3&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.esa.int\/Science_Exploration\/Space_Science\/Gaia\/Gaia_sees_strange_stars_in_most_detailed_Milky_Way_survey_to_date\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Space scientists have today (Monday) announced the discovery of a \u2018super Jupiter\u2019 orbiting a white dwarf, the first detected using direct observations with the European Space Agency (ESA)\u2019s Gaia mission. The discovery forms part of a treasure trove of data made available in Gaia\u2019s Data Release 3, which provides the most detailed survey of our [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":256,"featured_media":10,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-astro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/256"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1497"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1498,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497\/revisions\/1498"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}