satellite
A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisotope ...
of the
European Space Agency
, owners =
, headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France
, coordinates =
, spaceport = Guiana Space Centre
, seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png
, seal_size = 130px
, image = Views in the Main Control Room (1205 ...
(ESA), launched in 1989 and operated until 1993. It was the first space experiment devoted to precision
astrometry
Astrometry is a branch of astronomy that involves precise measurements of the positions and movements of stars and other celestial bodies. It provides the kinematics and physical origin of the Solar System and this galaxy, the Milky Way.
His ...
, the accurate measurement of the positions of celestial objects on the sky. This permitted the first high-precision measurements of the intrinsic brightnesses (compared to the less precise
apparent brightness
Apparent magnitude () is a measure of the brightness of a star or other astronomical object observed from Earth. An object's apparent magnitude depends on its intrinsic luminosity, its distance from Earth, and any extinction of the object's lig ...
),
proper motion
Proper motion is the astrometric measure of the observed changes in the apparent places of stars or other celestial objects in the sky, as seen from the center of mass of the Solar System, compared to the abstract background of the more dista ...
s, and
parallax
Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight and is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines. Due to foreshortening, nearby objects ...
es of stars, enabling better calculations of their distance and
tangential velocity
In everyday use and in kinematics, the speed (commonly referred to as ''v'') of an object is the magnitude of the change of its position over time or the magnitude of the change of its position per unit of time; it is thus a scalar quantit ...
. When combined with
radial velocity
The radial velocity or line-of-sight velocity, also known as radial speed or range rate, of a target with respect to an observer is the temporal rate of change, rate of change of the distance or Slant range, range between the two points. It is e ...
measurements from
spectroscopy
Spectroscopy is the field of study that measures and interprets the electromagnetic spectra that result from the interaction between electromagnetic radiation and matter as a function of the wavelength or frequency of the radiation. Matter wa ...
, astrophysicists were able to finally measure all six quantities needed to determine the motion of stars. The resulting ''Hipparcos Catalogue'', a high-precision catalogue of more than 118,200 stars, was published in 1997. The lower-precision ''Tycho Catalogue'' of more than a million stars was published at the same time, while the enhanced
Tycho-2 Catalogue
The Tycho-2 Catalogue is an astronomical catalogue of more than 2.5 million of the brightest stars.
Catalogue
The astrometric reference catalogue contain positions, proper motions, and two-color photometric data for 2,539,913 of the brightes ...
of 2.5 million stars was published in 2000. ''Hipparcos'' follow-up mission, ''
Gaia
In Greek mythology, Gaia (; from Ancient Greek , a poetical form of , 'land' or 'earth'),, , . also spelled Gaea , is the personification of the Earth and one of the Greek primordial deities. Gaia is the ancestral mother—sometimes parthenog ...
'', was launched in 2013.
The word "Hipparcos" is an
acronym
An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...
for HIgh Precision PARallax COllecting Satellite and also a reference to the ancient Greek astronomer
Hipparchus
Hipparchus (; el, Ἵππαρχος, ''Hipparkhos''; BC) was a Greek astronomer, geographer, and mathematician. He is considered the founder of trigonometry, but is most famous for his incidental discovery of the precession of the equi ...
of Nicaea, who is noted for applications of
trigonometry
Trigonometry () is a branch of mathematics that studies relationships between side lengths and angles of triangles. The field emerged in the Hellenistic world during the 3rd century BC from applications of geometry to astronomical studies. T ...
to astronomy and his discovery of the
precession of the equinoxes
In astronomy, axial precession is a gravity-induced, slow, and continuous change in the orientation of an astronomical body's rotational axis. In the absence of precession, the astronomical body's orbit would show axial parallelism. In particu ...
.
Background
By the second half of the 20th century, the accurate measurement of
star
A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by its gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked ...
positions from the ground was running into essentially insurmountable barriers to improvements in accuracy, especially for large-angle measurements and systematic terms. Problems were dominated by the effects of the
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...
's
atmosphere
An atmosphere () is a layer of gas or layers of gases that envelop a planet, and is held in place by the gravity of the planetary body. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A s ...
, but were compounded by complex optical terms, thermal and
gravitational
In physics, gravity () is a fundamental interaction which causes mutual attraction between all things with mass or energy. Gravity is, by far, the weakest of the four fundamental interactions, approximately 1038 times weaker than the stron ...
instrument flexures, and the absence of all-sky visibility. A formal proposal to make these exacting observations from space was first put forward in 1967.
The mission was originally proposed to the French space agency
CNES
The (CNES; French: ''Centre national d'études spatiales'') is the French government space agency (administratively, a "public administration with industrial and commercial purpose"). Its headquarters are located in central Paris and it is und ...
, which considered it too complex and expensive for a single national programme and recommended that it be proposed in a multinational context. Its acceptance within the
European Space Agency
, owners =
, headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France
, coordinates =
, spaceport = Guiana Space Centre
, seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png
, seal_size = 130px
, image = Views in the Main Control Room (1205 ...
's scientific programme, in 1980, was the result of a lengthy process of study and
lobbying
In politics, lobbying, persuasion or interest representation is the act of lawfully attempting to influence the actions, policies, or decisions of government officials, most often legislators or members of regulatory agency, regulatory agencie ...
. The underlying scientific motivation was to determine the physical properties of the stars through the measurement of their distances and space motions, and thus to place theoretical studies of stellar structure and evolution, and studies of
galactic
Galactic is an American jam band from New Orleans, Louisiana.
Origins and background
Formed in 1994 as an octet (under the name Galactic Prophylactic) and including singer Chris Lane and guitarist Rob Gowen, the group was soon pared down to a ...
structure and kinematics, on a more secure empirical basis. Observationally, the objective was to provide the positions,
parallax
Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight and is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines. Due to foreshortening, nearby objects ...
es, and annual
proper motion
Proper motion is the astrometric measure of the observed changes in the apparent places of stars or other celestial objects in the sky, as seen from the center of mass of the Solar System, compared to the abstract background of the more dista ...
s for some 100,000 stars with an unprecedented accuracy of 0.002 arcseconds, a target in practice eventually surpassed by a factor of two. The name of the space telescope, "Hipparcos", was an
acronym
An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...
for ''High Precision Parallax Collecting Satellite'', and it also reflected the name of the ancient Greek astronomer
Hipparchus
Hipparchus (; el, Ἵππαρχος, ''Hipparkhos''; BC) was a Greek astronomer, geographer, and mathematician. He is considered the founder of trigonometry, but is most famous for his incidental discovery of the precession of the equi ...
, who is considered the founder of
trigonometry
Trigonometry () is a branch of mathematics that studies relationships between side lengths and angles of triangles. The field emerged in the Hellenistic world during the 3rd century BC from applications of geometry to astronomical studies. T ...
and the discoverer of the
precession of the equinoxes
In astronomy, axial precession is a gravity-induced, slow, and continuous change in the orientation of an astronomical body's rotational axis. In the absence of precession, the astronomical body's orbit would show axial parallelism. In particu ...
(due to the Earth wobbling on its axis).
Satellite and payload
The spacecraft carried a single all-reflective, eccentric
Schmidt telescope
Schmidt may refer to:
* Schmidt (surname), including list of people with the surname
* Schmidt (singer) (born 1990), German pop and jazz singer
* Schmidt (lunar crater), a small lunar impact crater
* Schmidt (Martian crater), a crater on Mars
* ...
, with an aperture of . A special beam-combining mirror superimposed two fields of view, 58° apart, into the common focal plane. This complex mirror consisted of two mirrors tilted in opposite directions, each occupying half of the rectangular entrance pupil, and providing an unvignetted field of view of about 1° × 1°. The telescope used a system of grids, at the focal surface, composed of 2688 alternate opaque and transparent bands, with a period of 1.208 arc-sec (8.2 micrometre). Behind this grid system, an
image dissector
An image dissector, also called a dissector tube, is a video camera tube in which photocathode emissions create an "electron image" which is then swept up, down and across an anode to produce an electrical signal representing the visual image. It e ...
tube (
photomultiplier A photomultiplier is a device that converts incident photons into an electrical signal.
Kinds of photomultiplier include:
* Photomultiplier tube, a vacuum tube converting incident photons into an electric signal. Photomultiplier tubes (PMTs for sho ...
type detector) with a sensitive field of view of about 38-arc-sec diameter converted the modulated light into a sequence of
photon
A photon () is an elementary particle that is a quantum of the electromagnetic field, including electromagnetic radiation such as light and radio waves, and the force carrier for the electromagnetic force. Photons are massless, so they always ...
counts (with a sampling frequency of 1200 Hz) from which the phase of the entire pulse train from a star could be derived. The apparent angle between two stars in the combined fields of view, modulo the grid period, was obtained from the phase difference of the two star pulse trains. Originally targeting the observation of some 100,000 stars, with an astrometric accuracy of about 0.002 arc-sec, the final ''Hipparcos Catalogue'' comprised nearly 120,000 stars with a median accuracy of slightly better than 0.001 arc-sec (1 milliarc-sec).
An additional
photomultiplier A photomultiplier is a device that converts incident photons into an electrical signal.
Kinds of photomultiplier include:
* Photomultiplier tube, a vacuum tube converting incident photons into an electric signal. Photomultiplier tubes (PMTs for sho ...
system viewed a beam splitter in the optical path and was used as a star mapper. Its purpose was to monitor and determine the satellite attitude, and in the process, to gather photometric and
astrometric
Astrometry is a branch of astronomy that involves precise measurements of the positions and movements of stars and other celestial bodies. It provides the kinematics and physical origin of the Solar System and this galaxy, the Milky Way.
His ...
data of all stars down to about 11th magnitude. These measurements were made in two broad bands approximately corresponding to B and V in the (Johnson)
UBV photometric system
The UBV photometric system (from ''Ultraviolet, Blue, Visual''), also called the Johnson system (or Johnson-Morgan system), is a photometric system usually employed for classifying stars according to their colors.
It was the first standardized p ...
. The positions of these latter stars were to be determined to a precision of 0.03 arc-sec, which is a factor of 25 less than the main mission stars. Originally targeting the observation of around 400,000 stars, the resulting ''Tycho Catalogue'' comprised just over 1 million stars, with a subsequent analysis extending this to the
Tycho-2 Catalogue
The Tycho-2 Catalogue is an astronomical catalogue of more than 2.5 million of the brightest stars.
Catalogue
The astrometric reference catalogue contain positions, proper motions, and two-color photometric data for 2,539,913 of the brightes ...
of about 2.5 million stars.
The attitude of the spacecraft about its center of gravity was controlled to scan the
celestial sphere
In astronomy and navigation, the celestial sphere is an abstract sphere that has an arbitrarily large radius and is concentric to Earth. All objects in the sky can be conceived as being projected upon the inner surface of the celestial sphere, ...
in a regular precessional motion maintaining a constant inclination between the spin axis and the direction to the Sun. The spacecraft spun around its
Z-axis
Underground Development, Ltd. (formerly Z-Axis, Ltd.) was an American video game developer based in Foster City, California. The company was founded in 1994 by David Luntz and sold to Activision in May 2002. Following a rebranding to Undergroun ...
at the rate of 11.25 revolutions/day (168.75 arc-sec/s) at an angle of 43° to the
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...
. The Z-axis rotated about the Sun-satellite line at 6.4 revolutions/year.
The spacecraft consisted of two platforms and six vertical panels, all made of aluminum honeycomb. The solar array consisted of three deployable sections, generating around 300 W in total. Two
S-band
The S band is a designation by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for a part of the microwave band of the electromagnetic spectrum covering frequencies from 2 to 4 gigahertz (GHz). Thus it crosses the conventional ...
antennas were located on the top and bottom of the spacecraft, providing an omni-directional downlink data rate of 24
kbit/s
In telecommunications, data-transfer rate is the average number of bits (bitrate), characters or symbols (baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are multi ...
. An attitude and orbit-control subsystem (comprising 5-
newton
Newton most commonly refers to:
* Isaac Newton (1642–1726/1727), English scientist
* Newton (unit), SI unit of force named after Isaac Newton
Newton may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Newton'' (film), a 2017 Indian film
* Newton ( ...
hydrazine
Hydrazine is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula . It is a simple pnictogen hydride, and is a colourless flammable liquid with an ammonia-like odour. Hydrazine is highly toxic unless handled in solution as, for example, hydrazine ...
thrusters for course manoeuvres, 20-millinewton cold gas thrusters for attitude control, and
gyroscope
A gyroscope (from Ancient Greek γῦρος ''gŷros'', "round" and σκοπέω ''skopéō'', "to look") is a device used for measuring or maintaining orientation and angular velocity. It is a spinning wheel or disc in which the axis of rota ...
s for attitude determination) ensured correct dynamic attitude control and determination during the operational lifetime.
Principles
Some key features of the observations were as follows:
* through observations from space, the effects of
astronomical seeing
In astronomy, seeing is the degradation of the image of an astronomical object due to turbulence in the atmosphere of Earth that may become visible as blurring, twinkling or variable distortion. The origin of this effect are rapidly changing var ...
due to the
atmosphere
An atmosphere () is a layer of gas or layers of gases that envelop a planet, and is held in place by the gravity of the planetary body. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A s ...
, instrumental gravitational flexure and thermal distortions could be obviated or minimised;
* all-sky visibility permitted a direct linking of the stars observed all over the celestial sphere;
* the two viewing directions of the satellite, separated by a large and suitable angle (58°), resulted in a rigid connection between quasi-instantaneous one-dimensional observations in different parts of the sky. In turn, this led to
parallax
Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight and is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines. Due to foreshortening, nearby objects ...
determinations which are absolute (rather than relative, with respect to some unknown zero-point);
* the continuous
ecliptic
The ecliptic or ecliptic plane is the orbital plane of the Earth around the Sun. From the perspective of an observer on Earth, the Sun's movement around the celestial sphere over the course of a year traces out a path along the ecliptic again ...
-based scanning of the satellite resulted in an optimum use of the available observing time, with a resulting catalogue providing reasonably homogeneous sky density and uniform astrometric accuracy over the entire celestial sphere;
* the various geometrical scan configurations for each star, at multiple epochs throughout the 3-year observation programme, resulted in a dense network of one-dimensional positions from which the barycentric coordinate direction, the
parallax
Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight and is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines. Due to foreshortening, nearby objects ...
, and the object's
proper motion
Proper motion is the astrometric measure of the observed changes in the apparent places of stars or other celestial objects in the sky, as seen from the center of mass of the Solar System, compared to the abstract background of the more dista ...
, could be solved for in what was effectively a global
least squares
The method of least squares is a standard approach in regression analysis to approximate the solution of overdetermined systems (sets of equations in which there are more equations than unknowns) by minimizing the sum of the squares of the res ...
reduction of the totality of observations. The astrometric parameters as well as their standard errors and correlation coefficients were derived in the process;
* since the number of independent geometrical observations per object was large (typically of order 30) compared with the number of unknowns for the standard model (five astrometric unknowns per star), astrometric solutions not complying with this simple five-parameter model could be expanded to take into account the effects of double or multiple stars, or non-linear photocentric motions ascribed to unresolved
astrometric binaries
A binary star is a system of two stars that are gravitationally bound to and in orbit around each other. Binary stars in the night sky that are seen as a single object to the naked eye are often resolved using a telescope as separate stars, in w ...
;
* a somewhat larger number of actual observations per object, of order 110, provided accurate and homogeneous photometric information for each star, from which mean magnitudes, variability amplitudes, and in many cases period and variability type classification could be undertaken.
Development, launch and operations
The ''Hipparcos'' satellite was financed and managed under the overall authority of the
European Space Agency
, owners =
, headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France
, coordinates =
, spaceport = Guiana Space Centre
, seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png
, seal_size = 130px
, image = Views in the Main Control Room (1205 ...
(ESA). The main industrial contractors were
Matra Marconi Space
Matra Marconi Space (MMS) was a Franco-British aerospace company.
History
Matra Marconi Space was established in 1990 as a joint venture between the space and telecommunication divisions of the Lagardère Group ( Matra Espace) and the GEC ...
(now
EADS Astrium
Astrium was an aerospace manufacturer subsidiary of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) that provided civil and military space systems and services from 2006 to 2013. In 2012, Astrium had a turnover of €5.8 billion and 18 ...
Thales Alenia Space
Thales Alenia Space () is a Franco-Italian aerospace manufacturer. A joint venture between the French technology corporation Thales Group (67%) and Italian defense conglomerate Leonardo (33%), the company is the largest satellite manufactur ...
).
Other hardware components were supplied as follows: the beam-combining mirror from REOSC at
Saint-Pierre-du-Perray
Saint-Pierre-du-Perray () is a commune in the Essonne department in Île-de-France in northern France.
Population
Inhabitants of Saint-Pierre-du-Perray are known as ''Saint-Perreyens''.
See also
*Communes of the Essonne department
The follo ...
, France; the spherical, folding and relay mirrors from
Carl Zeiss AG
Carl Zeiss AG (), branded as ZEISS, is a German manufacturer of optical systems and optoelectronics, founded in Jena, Germany in 1846 by optician Carl Zeiss. Together with Ernst Abbe (joined 1866) and Otto Schott (joined 1884) he laid the f ...
in
Oberkochen
Oberkochen is a municipality (officially a town, despite its size) in the Ostalbkreis, in Baden-Württemberg, in Germany, central Europe.
Name
The name "Oberkochen" consists of the two German words "ober", meaning "above" or "upper", and "Ko ...
, Germany; the external straylight baffles from CASA in
Madrid
Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...
Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
; the mechanism control system and the thermal control electronics from
Dornier Satellite Systems Dornier may refer to:
* Claudius Dornier (1884–1969), German aircraft designer and builder
** Dornier Flugzeugwerke, German aircraft manufacturer founded in 1914 by Claudius Dornier
* Dornier Consulting, international consulting and project manag ...
in
Friedrichshafen
Friedrichshafen ( or ; Low Alemannic: ''Hafe'' or ''Fridrichshafe'') is a city on the northern shoreline of Lake Constance (the ''Bodensee'') in Southern Germany, near the borders of both Switzerland and Austria. It is the district capital (''Kre ...
, Germany; the optical filters, the experiment structures and the attitude and orbit control system from
Matra Marconi Space
Matra Marconi Space (MMS) was a Franco-British aerospace company.
History
Matra Marconi Space was established in 1990 as a joint venture between the space and telecommunication divisions of the Lagardère Group ( Matra Espace) and the GEC ...
in Vélizy, France; the instrument switching mechanisms from
Oerlikon-Contraves
Rheinmetall Air Defence AG is a division of German armament manufacturer Rheinmetall, created when the company's Oerlikon Contraves unit was renamed on 1 January 2009 and integrated with Rheinmetall's other air-defence products. Oerlikon Contr ...
in Zurich, Switzerland; the image dissector tube and photomultiplier detectors assembled by the Dutch Space Research Organisation ( SRON) in the Netherlands; the refocusing assembly mechanism designed by TNO-TPD in
Delft
Delft () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam, to the southeast, ...
, Netherlands; the electrical power subsystem from
British Aerospace
British Aerospace plc (BAe) was a British aircraft, munitions and defence-systems manufacturer. Its head office was at Warwick House in the Farnborough Aerospace Centre in Farnborough, Hampshire. Formed in 1977, in 1999 it purchased Marconi ...
in
Bristol
Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...
, United Kingdom; the structure and reaction control system from Daimler-Benz Aerospace in
Bremen
Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state consis ...
, Germany; the solar arrays and thermal control system from Fokker Space System in
Leiden
Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration wit ...
, Netherlands; the data handling and telecommunications system from
Saab Ericsson Space
Saab or SAAB may refer to:
Brands and enterprises
* Saab AB, Saab Group, a Swedish aerospace and defence company, formerly known as SAAB, and later as Saab AB
** Datasaab, a former computer company, started as spin off from Saab AB
* Saab Automob ...
in
Gothenburg
Gothenburg (; abbreviated Gbg; sv, Göteborg ) is the second-largest city in Sweden, fifth-largest in the Nordic countries, and capital of the Västra Götaland County. It is situated by the Kattegat, on the west coast of Sweden, and has ...
,
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...
; and the apogee boost motor from SEP in France. Groups from the Institut d'Astrophysique in
Liège
Liège ( , , ; wa, Lîdje ; nl, Luik ; german: Lüttich ) is a major city and municipality of Wallonia and the capital of the Belgian province of Liège.
The city is situated in the valley of the Meuse, in the east of Belgium, not far from b ...
,
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
and the Laboratoire d'Astronomie Spatiale in
Marseille
Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...
, France, contributed optical performance, calibration and alignment test procedures; Captec in
Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...
. Ireland, and Logica in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
contributed to the on-board software and calibration.
The ''Hipparcos'' satellite was launched (with the direct broadcast satellite
TV-Sat 2
TV-SAT 2 or TVSAT-2 was a West German communications satellite which was to have been operated by Deutsche Bundespost. It was intended to be used to provide television broadcast services to Europe. It was constructed by Aérospatiale, based on t ...
as co-passenger) on an
Ariane 4
The Ariane 4 was a European expendable space launch system, developed by the '' Centre national d'études spatiales'' (CNES), the French space agency, for the European Space Agency (ESA). It was manufactured by ArianeGroup and marketed by Ari ...
launch vehicle
A launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket designed to carry a payload (spacecraft or satellites) from the Earth's surface to outer space. Most launch vehicles operate from a launch pad, launch pads, supported by a missile launch contro ...
Kourou
Kourou () is a commune in French Guiana, an overseas region and department of France in South America. Kourou is famous for being the location of the Guiana Space Centre, the main spaceport of France and the European Space Agency (ESA). It i ...
,
French Guiana
French Guiana ( or ; french: link=no, Guyane ; gcr, label=French Guianese Creole, Lagwiyann ) is an overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France on the northern Atlantic ...
, on 8 August 1989. Launched into a
geostationary transfer orbit
A geosynchronous transfer orbit or geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) is a type of geocentric orbit. Satellite, Satellites that are destined for geosynchronous orbit, geosynchronous (GSO) or geostationary orbit (GEO) are (almost) always put into ...
geostationary orbit
A geostationary orbit, also referred to as a geosynchronous equatorial orbit''Geostationary orbit'' and ''Geosynchronous (equatorial) orbit'' are used somewhat interchangeably in sources. (GEO), is a circular geosynchronous orbit in altitud ...
was never achieved. However, with the addition of further ground stations, in addition to ESA operations control centre at
European Space Operations Centre
The European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) serves as the main mission control centre for the European Space Agency (ESA) and is located in Darmstadt, Germany. ESOC's primary function is the operation of unmanned spacecraft on behalf of ESA and ...
(ESOC) in Germany, the satellite was successfully operated in its geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) for almost 3.5 years. All of the original mission goals were, eventually, exceeded.
Including an estimate for the scientific activities related to the satellite observations and data processing, the ''Hipparcos'' mission cost about €600 million (in year 2000 economic conditions), and its execution involved some 200 European scientists and more than 2,000 individuals in European industry.
Hipparcos Input Catalogue
The satellite observations relied on a pre-defined list of target stars. Stars were observed as the satellite rotated, by a sensitive region of the image dissector tube detector. This pre-defined star list formed the ''Hipparcos Input Catalogue'' (HIC): each star in the final ''Hipparcos Catalogue'' was contained in the Input Catalogue. The Input Catalogue was compiled by the INCA Consortium over the period 1982–1989, finalised pre-launch, and published both digitally and in printed form.
Although fully superseded by the satellite results, it nevertheless includes supplemental information on multiple system components as well as compilations of radial velocities and spectral types which, not observed by the satellite, were not included in the published ''Hipparcos Catalogue''.
Constraints on total observing time, and on the uniformity of stars across the celestial sphere for satellite operations and data analysis, led to an Input Catalogue of some 118,000 stars. It merged
two components: first, a survey of around 58,000 objects as complete as possible to the following limiting magnitudes:
V<7.9 + 1.1sin, b, for spectral types earlier than G5, and
V<7.3 + 1.1sin, b, for spectral types later than G5 (b is the Galactic latitude). Stars constituting this survey are flagged in the ''Hipparcos Catalogue''.
The second component comprised additional stars selected according to their scientific interest, with none fainter than about magnitude V=13 mag. These were selected from around 200 scientific proposals submitted on the basis of an Invitation for Proposals issued by ESA in 1982, and prioritised by the Scientific Proposal Selection Committee in consultation with the Input Catalogue Consortium. This selection had to balance 'a priori' scientific interest, and the observing programme's limiting magnitude, total observing time, and sky uniformity constraints.
Data reductions
For the main mission results, the data analysis was carried out by two independent scientific teams, NDAC and FAST, together comprising some 100 astronomers and scientists, mostly from European (ESA-member state) institutes. The analyses, proceeding from nearly 1000 Gbit of satellite data acquired over 3.5 years, incorporated a comprehensive system of cross-checking and validation, and is described in detail in the published catalogue.
A detailed optical calibration model was included to map the transformation from sky to instrumental coordinates. Its adequacy could be verified by the detailed measurement residuals. The Earth's orbit, and the satellite's orbit with respect to the
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...
, were essential for describing the location of the observer at each epoch of observation, and were supplied by an appropriate Earth ephemeris combined with accurate satellite ranging. Corrections due to
special relativity
In physics, the special theory of relativity, or special relativity for short, is a scientific theory regarding the relationship between space and time. In Albert Einstein's original treatment, the theory is based on two postulates:
# The laws o ...
( stellar aberration) made use of the corresponding satellite velocity. Modifications due to general relativistic light bending were significant (4 milliarc-sec at 90° to the ecliptic) and corrected for deterministically assuming γ=1 in the
PPN formalism
In physics, precisely in the study of the theory of general relativity and many alternatives to it, the post-Newtonian formalism is a calculational tool that expresses Einstein's (nonlinear) equations of gravity in terms of the lowest-order dev ...
. Residuals were examined to establish limits on any deviations from this general relativistic value, and no significant discrepancies were found.
Reference frame
The satellite observations essentially yielded highly accurate relative positions of stars with respect to each other, throughout the measurement period (1989–1993). In the absence of direct observations of extragalactic sources (apart from marginal observations of
quasar
A quasar is an extremely Luminosity, luminous active galactic nucleus (AGN). It is pronounced , and sometimes known as a quasi-stellar object, abbreviated QSO. This emission from a galaxy nucleus is powered by a supermassive black hole with a m ...
3C 273
3C 273 is a quasar located in the constellation of Virgo (constellation), Virgo. It was the first quasar ever to be identified.
It is the optically brightest quasar in the sky from Earth (apparent magnitude, m ~12.9), and one of the closest with ...
) the resulting rigid reference frame was transformed to an
inertial frame of reference
In classical physics and special relativity, an inertial frame of reference (also called inertial reference frame, inertial frame, inertial space, or Galilean reference frame) is a frame of reference that is not undergoing any acceleration. ...
linked to extragalactic sources. This allows surveys at different wavelengths to be directly correlated with the ''Hipparcos'' stars, and ensures that the catalogue proper motions are, as far as possible, kinematically non-rotating. The determination of the relevant three solid-body rotation angles, and the three time-dependent rotation rates, was conducted and completed in advance of the catalogue publication. This resulted in an accurate but indirect link to an inertial, extragalactic, reference frame.
A variety of methods to establish this reference frame link before catalogue publication were included and appropriately weighted: interferometric observations of radio stars by
VLBI
Very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) is a type of astronomical interferometry used in radio astronomy. In VLBI a signal from an astronomical radio source, such as a quasar, is collected at multiple radio telescopes on Earth or in space. T ...
networks,
MERLIN
Merlin ( cy, Myrddin, kw, Marzhin, br, Merzhin) is a mythical figure prominently featured in the legend of King Arthur and best known as a mage, with several other main roles. His usual depiction, based on an amalgamation of historic and le ...
and
Very Large Array
The Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) is a centimeter-wavelength radio astronomy observatory located in central New Mexico on the Plains of San Agustin, between the towns of Magdalena and Datil, ~ west of Socorro. The VLA comprises twen ...
(VLA); observations of
quasars
A quasar is an extremely luminous active galactic nucleus (AGN). It is pronounced , and sometimes known as a quasi-stellar object, abbreviated QSO. This emission from a galaxy nucleus is powered by a supermassive black hole with a mass ranging ...
relative to ''Hipparcos'' stars using
charge-coupled device
A charge-coupled device (CCD) is an integrated circuit containing an array of linked, or coupled, capacitors. Under the control of an external circuit, each capacitor can transfer its electric charge to a neighboring capacitor. CCD sensors are a ...
(CCD), photographic plates, and the
Hubble Space Telescope
The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most versa ...
; photographic programmes to determine stellar proper motions with respect to extragalactic objects (Bonn, Kiev, Lick, Potsdam, Yale/San Juan); and comparison of
Earth rotation
Earth's rotation or Earth's spin is the rotation of planet Earth around its own axis, as well as changes in the orientation of the rotation axis in space. Earth rotates eastward, in prograde motion. As viewed from the northern polar star Polar ...
parameters obtained by
Very-long-baseline interferometry
Very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) is a type of astronomical interferometer, astronomical interferometry used in radio astronomy. In VLBI a signal from an astronomical radio source, such as a quasar, is collected at multiple radio telesco ...
(VLBI) and by ground-based optical observations of ''Hipparcos'' stars. Although very different in terms of instruments, observational methods and objects involved, the various techniques generally agreed to within 10 milliarc-sec in the orientation and 1 milliarc-sec/year in the rotation of the system. From appropriate weighting, the coordinate axes defined by the published catalogue are believed to be aligned with the extragalactic radio frame to within ±0.6 milliarc-sec at the epoch J1991.25, and non-rotating with respect to distant extragalactic objects to within ±0.25 milliarc-sec/yr.
The ''Hipparcos'' and Tycho Catalogues were then constructed such that the resulting ''Hipparcos'' celestial reference frame (HCRF) coincides, to within observational uncertainties, with the ''
International Celestial Reference Frame
The International Celestial Reference System (ICRS) is the current standard celestial reference system adopted by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Its origin is at the barycenter of the Solar System, with axes that are intended to "sho ...
'' (ICRF), and representing the best estimates at the time of the catalogue completion (in 1996). The HCRF is thus a materialisation of the
International Celestial Reference System
The International Celestial Reference System (ICRS) is the current standard celestial reference system adopted by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Its origin is at the barycenter of the Solar System, with axes that are intended to "sh ...
(ICRS) in the optical domain. It extends and improves the
J2000
In astronomy, an epoch or reference epoch is a instant, moment in time used as a reference point for some time-varying astronomical quantity. It is useful for the celestial coordinates or orbital elements of a Astronomical object, celestial body, ...
(
FK5
The Catalogue of Fundamental Stars is a series of six astrometric catalogues of high precision positional data for a small selection of stars to define a celestial reference frame, which is a standard coordinate system for measuring positions of s ...
) system, retaining approximately the global orientation of that system but without its regional errors.
Double and multiple stars
Whilst of enormous astronomical importance,
double star
In observational astronomy, a double star or visual double is a pair of stars that appear close to each other as viewed from Earth, especially with the aid of optical telescopes.
This occurs because the pair either forms a binary star (i.e. a bi ...
s and
multiple star
A star system or stellar system is a small number of stars that orbit each other, bound by gravitational attraction. A large group of stars bound by gravitation is generally called a ''star cluster'' or ''galaxy'', although, broadly speaking, ...
s provided considerable complications to the observations (due to the finite size and profile of the detector's sensitive field of view) and to the data analysis. The data processing classified the astrometric solutions as follows:
* single-star solutions: 100,038 entries, of which 6,763 were flagged as suspected double
* component solutions (Annex C): 13,211 entries, comprising 24,588 components in 12,195 solutions
* acceleration solutions (Annex G): 2,622 solutions
* orbital solutions (Annex O): 235 entries
* variability-induced movers (Annex V): 288 entries
* stochastic solutions (Annex X): 1,561 entries
* no valid astrometric solution: 263 entries (of which 218 were flagged as suspected double)
If a binary star has a long orbital period such that non-linear motions of the photocentre were insignificant over the short (3-year) measurement duration, the binary nature of the star would pass unrecognised by ''Hipparcos'', but could show as a ''Hipparcos'' proper motion discrepant compared to those established from long temporal baseline proper motion programmes on ground. Higher-order photocentric motions could be represented by a 7-parameter, or even 9-parameter model fit (compared to the standard 5-parameter model), and typically such models could be enhanced in complexity until suitable fits were obtained. A complete orbit, requiring 7 elements, was determined for 45 systems. Orbital periods close to one year can become degenerate with the parallax, resulting in unreliable solutions for both. Triple or higher-order systems provided further challenges to the data processing.
Photometric observations
The highest accuracy photometric data were provided as a by-product of the main mission astrometric observations. They were made in a broad-band visible light
passband
A passband is the range of frequencies or wavelengths that can pass through a filter. For example, a radio receiver contains a bandpass filter to select the frequency of the desired radio signal out of all the radio waves picked up by its antenn ...
, specific to ''Hipparcos'', and designated Hp. The median photometric precision, for Hp<9 magnitude, was 0.0015
magnitude
Magnitude may refer to:
Mathematics
*Euclidean vector, a quantity defined by both its magnitude and its direction
*Magnitude (mathematics), the relative size of an object
*Norm (mathematics), a term for the size or length of a vector
*Order of ...
, with typically 110 distinct observations per star throughout the 3.5-year observation period. As part of the data reduction and catalogue production, new variables were identified and designated with appropriate
variable star designation
In astronomy, a variable star designation is a unique identifier given to variable stars. It uses a variation on the Bayer designation format, with an identifying label (as described below) preceding the Latin genitive of the name of the constell ...
s. Variable stars were classified as periodic or unsolved variables; the former were published with estimates of their period, variability amplitude, and variability type. In total some 11,597 variable objects were detected, of which 8,237 were newly classified as variable. There are, for example, 273
Cepheid variable
A Cepheid variable () is a type of star that pulsates radially, varying in both diameter and temperature and producing changes in brightness with a well-defined stable period and amplitude.
A strong direct relationship between a Cepheid varia ...
Delta Scuti variable
A Delta Scuti variable (sometimes termed dwarf cepheid when the V-band amplitude is larger than 0.3 mag.) is a subclass of young pulsating star.
These variables as well as classical cepheids are important standard candles and have been used to es ...
s, and 917
eclipsing binary star
A binary star is a system of two stars that are gravitationally bound to and in orbit around each other. Binary stars in the night sky that are seen as a single object to the naked eye are often resolved using a telescope as separate stars, in wh ...
s. The star mapper observations, constituting the Tycho (and Tycho-2) Catalogue, provided two colours, roughly B and V in the Johnson UBV
photometric system
In astronomy, a photometric system is a set of well-defined passbands (or optical filters), with a known sensitivity to incident radiation. The sensitivity usually depends on the optical system, detectors and filters used. For each photometric sy ...
, important for
spectral classification
In astronomy, stellar classification is the classification of stars based on their spectral characteristics. Electromagnetic radiation from the star is analyzed by splitting it with a prism or diffraction grating into a spectrum exhibiting the ...
and
effective temperature
The effective temperature of a body such as a star or planet is the temperature of a black body that would emit the same total amount of electromagnetic radiation. Effective temperature is often used as an estimate of a body's surface temperature ...
determination.
Radial velocities
Classical astrometry concerns only motions in the plane of the sky and ignores the star's
radial velocity
The radial velocity or line-of-sight velocity, also known as radial speed or range rate, of a target with respect to an observer is the temporal rate of change, rate of change of the distance or Slant range, range between the two points. It is e ...
, i.e. its space motion along the line-of-sight. Whilst critical for an understanding of stellar kinematics, and hence population dynamics, its effect is generally imperceptible to astrometric measurements (in the plane of the sky), and therefore it is generally ignored in large-scale astrometric surveys. In practice, it can be measured as a
Doppler shift
The Doppler effect or Doppler shift (or simply Doppler, when in context) is the change in frequency of a wave in relation to an observer who is moving relative to the wave source. It is named after the Austrian physicist Christian Doppler, who d ...
of the spectral lines. More strictly, however, the radial velocity does enter a rigorous astrometric formulation. Specifically, a space velocity along the line-of-sight means that the transformation from tangential linear velocity to (angular)
proper motion
Proper motion is the astrometric measure of the observed changes in the apparent places of stars or other celestial objects in the sky, as seen from the center of mass of the Solar System, compared to the abstract background of the more dista ...
is a function of time. The resulting effect of secular or perspective acceleration is the interpretation of a transverse acceleration actually arising from a purely linear space velocity with a significant radial component, with the positional effect proportional to the product of the parallax, the proper motion, and the radial velocity. At the accuracy levels of ''Hipparcos'' it is of (marginal) importance only for the nearest stars with the largest radial velocities and proper motions, but was accounted for in the 21 cases for which the accumulated positional effect over two years exceeds 0.1 milliarc-sec. Radial velocities for ''Hipparcos Catalogue'' stars, to the extent that they are presently known from independent ground-based surveys, can be found from the astronomical database of the
Centre de données astronomiques de Strasbourg
Center or centre may refer to:
Mathematics
*Center (geometry), the middle of an object
* Center (algebra), used in various contexts
** Center (group theory)
** Center (ring theory)
* Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentricit ...
.
The absence of reliable distances for the majority of stars means that the angular measurements made, astrometrically, in the plane of the sky, cannot generally be converted into true space velocities in the plane of the sky. For this reason, astrometry characterises the transverse motions of stars in angular measure (e.g. arcsec per year) rather than in km/s or equivalent. Similarly, the typical absence of reliable radial velocities means that the transverse space motion (when known) is, in any case, only a component of the complete, three-dimensional, space velocity.
Published catalogues
The final ''Hipparcos Catalogue'' was the result of the critical comparison and merging of the two (NDAC and FAST consortia) analyses, and contains 118,218 entries (stars or multiple stars), corresponding to an average of some three stars per square degree over the entire sky. Median precision of the five astrometric parameters (Hp<9 magnitude) exceeded the original mission goals, and are between 0.6 and 1.0 mas. Some 20,000 distances were determined to better than 10%, and 50,000 to better than 20%. The inferred ratio of external to standard errors is ≈1.0–1.2, and estimated systematic errors are below 0.1 mas. The number of solved or suspected double or multiple stars is 23,882. Photometric observations yielded multi-epoch photometry with a mean number of 110 observations per star, and a median photometric precision (Hp<9 magnitude) of 0.0015 magnitude, with 11,597 entries were identified as variable or possibly-variable.
For the star mapper results, the data analysis was carried out by the Tycho Data Analysis Consortium (TDAC). The Tycho Catalogue comprises more than one million stars with 20–30 milliarc-sec astrometry and two-colour (B and V band) photometry.
The final ''Hipparcos'' and ''Tycho Catalogues'' were completed in August 1996. The catalogues were published by
European Space Agency
, owners =
, headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France
, coordinates =
, spaceport = Guiana Space Centre
, seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png
, seal_size = 130px
, image = Views in the Main Control Room (1205 ...
(ESA) on behalf of the scientific teams in June 1997.
A more extensive analysis of the star mapper (Tycho) data extracted additional faint stars from the data stream. Combined with old photographic plate observations made several decades earlier as part of the
Astrographic Catalogue
The Carte du Ciel (literally, 'Map of the Sky') and the Astrographic Catalogue (or Astrographic Chart) were two distinct but connected components of a massive international astronomical project, initiated in the late 19th century, to catalogue an ...
programme, the
Tycho-2 Catalogue
The Tycho-2 Catalogue is an astronomical catalogue of more than 2.5 million of the brightest stars.
Catalogue
The astrometric reference catalogue contain positions, proper motions, and two-color photometric data for 2,539,913 of the brightes ...
of more than 2.5 million stars (and fully superseding the original Tycho Catalogue) was published in 2000.
The ''Hipparcos'' and ''Tycho-1 Catalogues'' were used to create the
Millennium Star Atlas
The ''Millennium Star Atlas'' was constructed as a collaboration between
a team at ''Sky & Telescope'' led by Roger Sinnott, and the European Space Agency's Hipparcos project, led by Michael Perryman. This 1997 work was the first sky atlas to i ...
: an all-sky atlas of one million stars to
visual magnitude
Apparent magnitude () is a measure of the brightness of a star or other astronomical object observed from Earth. An object's apparent magnitude depends on its intrinsic luminosity, its distance from Earth, and any extinction of the object's ...
11. Some 10,000 nonstellar objects are also included to complement the catalogue data.
Between 1997 and 2007, investigations into subtle effects in the satellite attitude and instrument calibration continued. A number of effects in the data that had not been fully accounted for were studied, such as scan-phase discontinuities and micrometeoroid-induced attitude jumps. A re-reduction of the associated steps of the analysis was eventually undertaken.
This has led to improved astrometric accuracies for stars brighter than Hp=9.0 magnitude, reaching a factor of about three for the brightest stars (Hp<4.5 magnitude), while also underlining the conclusion that the ''Hipparcos Catalogue'' as originally published is generally reliable within the quoted accuracies.
All catalogue data are available online from the
Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg
Center or centre may refer to:
Mathematics
*Center (geometry), the middle of an object
* Center (algebra), used in various contexts
** Center (group theory)
** Center (ring theory)
* Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentricit ...
.
Scientific results
The ''Hipparcos'' results have affected a very broad range of astronomical research, which can be classified into three major themes:
* the provision of an accurate reference frame: this has allowed the consistent and rigorous re-reduction of historical astrometric measurements, including those from Schmidt plates, meridian circles, the 100-year-old
Astrographic Catalogue
The Carte du Ciel (literally, 'Map of the Sky') and the Astrographic Catalogue (or Astrographic Chart) were two distinct but connected components of a massive international astronomical project, initiated in the late 19th century, to catalogue an ...
, and 150 years of Earth-orientation measurements. These, in turn, have yielded a dense reference framework with high-accuracy, long-term proper motions (the
Tycho-2 Catalogue
The Tycho-2 Catalogue is an astronomical catalogue of more than 2.5 million of the brightest stars.
Catalogue
The astrometric reference catalogue contain positions, proper motions, and two-color photometric data for 2,539,913 of the brightes ...
). Reduction of current state-of-the-art survey data has yielded the dense UCAC2 Catalogue of the
U.S. Naval Observatory
United States Naval Observatory (USNO) is a scientific and military facility that produces geopositioning, navigation and timekeeping data for the United States Navy and the United States Department of Defense. Established in 1830 as the Depo ...
on the same reference system, and improved astrometric data from recent surveys such as the
Sloan Digital Sky Survey
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey or SDSS is a major multi-spectral imaging and spectroscopic redshift survey using a dedicated 2.5-m wide-angle optical telescope at Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico, United States. The project began in 2000 a ...
and 2MASS. Implicit in the high-accuracy reference frame is the measurement of
gravitational lens
A gravitational lens is a distribution of matter (such as a cluster of galaxies) between a distant light source and an observer that is capable of bending the light from the source as the light travels toward the observer. This effect is known ...
ing and the detection and characterisation of double and multiple stars;
* constraints on
stellar structure
Stellar structure models describe the internal structure of a star in detail and make predictions about the luminosity, the color and the future evolution of the star. Different classes and ages of stars have different internal structures, reflec ...
and
stellar evolution
Stellar evolution is the process by which a star changes over the course of time. Depending on the mass of the star, its lifetime can range from a few million years for the most massive to trillions of years for the least massive, which is cons ...
: the accurate distances and luminosities of 100,000 stars has provided the most comprehensive and accurate data set of fundamental stellar parameters to date, placing constraints on internal rotation, element diffusion, convective motions, and asteroseismology. Combined with theoretical models and other data it yields evolutionary masses, radii, and ages for large numbers of stars covering a wide range of evolutionary states;
* Galactic kinematics and dynamics: the uniform and accurate distances and proper motions have provided a substantial advance in understanding of
stellar kinematics
In astronomy, stellar kinematics is the observational study or measurement of the kinematics or motions of stars through space.
Stellar kinematics encompasses the measurement of stellar velocities in the Milky Way and its satellites as well as ...
and the dynamical structure of the solar neighbourhood, ranging from the presence and evolution of clusters, associations and moving groups, the presence of resonance motions due to the Galaxy's central bar and
spiral arms
Spiral galaxies form a class of galaxy originally described by Edwin Hubble in his 1936 work ''The Realm of the Nebulae''galactic rotation, discrimination of the disk and halo populations, evidence for halo accretion, and the measurement of space motions of
runaway stars
In astronomy, stellar kinematics is the observational study or measurement of the kinematics or motions of stars through space.
Stellar kinematics encompasses the measurement of stellar velocities in the Milky Way and its satellites as well as t ...
,
globular clusters
A globular cluster is a spheroidal conglomeration of stars. Globular clusters are bound together by gravity, with a higher concentration of stars towards their centers. They can contain anywhere from tens of thousands to many millions of member ...
, and many other types of star.
Associated with these major themes, ''Hipparcos'' has provided results in topics as diverse as Solar System science, including mass determinations of asteroids,
Earth's rotation
Earth's rotation or Earth's spin is the rotation of planet Earth around its own Rotation around a fixed axis, axis, as well as changes in the orientation (geometry), orientation of the rotation axis in space. Earth rotates eastward, in retrograd ...
and
Chandler wobble
The Chandler wobble or Chandler variation of latitude is a small deviation in the Earth's axis of rotation relative to the solid earth, which was discovered by and named after American astronomer Seth Carlo Chandler in 1891. It amounts to change o ...
; the internal structure of
white dwarf
A white dwarf is a stellar core remnant composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. A white dwarf is very dense: its mass is comparable to the Sun's, while its volume is comparable to the Earth's. A white dwarf's faint luminosity comes fro ...
s; the masses of
brown dwarfs
Brown dwarfs (also called failed stars) are substellar objects that are not massive enough to sustain nuclear fusion of ordinary hydrogen ( 1H) into helium in their cores, unlike a main-sequence star. Instead, they have a mass between the most m ...
; the characterisation of
extra-solar planets
An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first possible evidence of an exoplanet was noted in 1917 but was not recognized as such. The first confirmation of detection occurred in 1992. A different planet, init ...
and their host stars; the height of the Sun above the Galactic mid-plane; the
age of the Universe
In physical cosmology, the age of the universe is the time elapsed since the Big Bang. Astronomers have derived two different measurements of the age of the universe:
a measurement based on direct observations of an early state of the universe, ...
; the stellar
initial mass function
In astronomy, the initial mass function (IMF) is an empirical function that describes the initial Frequency distribution, distribution of masses for a population of stars. The IMF is an output of the process of star formation. The IMF is often g ...
search for extraterrestrial intelligence
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is a collective term for scientific searches for intelligent extraterrestrial life, for example, monitoring electromagnetic radiation for signs of transmissions from civilizations on other pl ...
. The high-precision multi-epoch photometry has been used to measure variability and stellar pulsations in many classes of objects. The ''Hipparcos'' and ''Tycho'' catalogues are now routinely used to point ground-based telescopes, navigate space missions, and drive public planetaria.
Since 1997, several thousand scientific papers have been published making use of the ''Hipparcos'' and ''Tycho'' catalogues. A detailed review of the ''Hipparcos'' scientific literature between 1997 and 2007 was published in 2009, and a popular account of the project in 2010. Some examples of notable results include (listed chronologically):
* studies of Galactic rotation from
Cepheid variable
A Cepheid variable () is a type of star that pulsates radially, varying in both diameter and temperature and producing changes in brightness with a well-defined stable period and amplitude.
A strong direct relationship between a Cepheid varia ...
s
* the nature of
Delta Scuti variable
A Delta Scuti variable (sometimes termed dwarf cepheid when the V-band amplitude is larger than 0.3 mag.) is a subclass of young pulsating star.
These variables as well as classical cepheids are important standard candles and have been used to es ...
s
* studies of local
stellar kinematics
In astronomy, stellar kinematics is the observational study or measurement of the kinematics or motions of stars through space.
Stellar kinematics encompasses the measurement of stellar velocities in the Milky Way and its satellites as well as ...
* testing the
white dwarf
A white dwarf is a stellar core remnant composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. A white dwarf is very dense: its mass is comparable to the Sun's, while its volume is comparable to the Earth's. A white dwarf's faint luminosity comes fro ...
mass–radius relation
* the structure and dynamics of the Hyades cluster
* kinematics of
Wolf–Rayet star
Wolf–Rayet stars, often abbreviated as WR stars, are a rare heterogeneous set of stars with unusual spectra showing prominent broad emission lines of ionised helium and highly ionised nitrogen or carbon. The spectra indicate very high surface ...
s and O-type
runaway star
In astronomy, stellar kinematics is the Observational astronomy, observational study or measurement of the kinematics or motions of stars through space.
Stellar kinematics encompasses the measurement of stellar Velocity, velocities in the Milky W ...
s
*
subdwarf
A subdwarf, sometimes denoted by "sd", is a star with luminosity class VI under the Yerkes spectral classification system. They are defined as stars with luminosity 1.5 to 2 magnitudes lower than that of main-sequence stars of the same spectral ...
parallaxes: metal-rich clusters and the thick disk
* fine structure of the
red giant
A red giant is a luminous giant star of low or intermediate mass (roughly 0.3–8 solar masses ()) in a late phase of stellar evolution. The outer atmosphere is inflated and tenuous, making the radius large and the surface temperature around or ...
clump and associated distance determinations
* unexpected stellar velocity distribution in the warped Galactic disk
* confirming the
Lutz–Kelker bias The Lutz–Kelker bias is a supposed systematic bias that results from the assumption that the probability of a star being at distance s
increases with the square of the distance which is equivalent to the assumption that the distribution of stars ...
of parallax measurement
* refining the
Oort
Jan Hendrik Oort ( or ; 28 April 1900 – 5 November 1992) was a Dutch astronomer who made significant contributions to the understanding of the Milky Way and who was a pioneer in the field of radio astronomy. His ''New York Times'' obituary ...
and Galactic constants
* Galactic disk dark matter, terrestrial impact cratering and the law of large numbers
* vertical motion and expansion of the
Gould Belt
The Gould Belt is a local, partial ring of stars in the Milky Way, about 3,000 light-years long, tilted away from the galactic plane by about 16–20 degrees. It contains many O- and B-type stars, amounting to the nearest star-forming regi ...
* the use of
gamma-ray burst
In gamma-ray astronomy, gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are immensely energetic explosions that have been observed in distant galaxies. They are the most energetic and luminous electromagnetic events since the Big Bang. Bursts can last from ten milli ...
s as direction and time markers in
SETI
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is a collective term for scientific searches for intelligent extraterrestrial life, for example, monitoring electromagnetic radiation for signs of transmissions from civilizations on other p ...
strategies
* evidence of a galaxy merger in the early formation history of the Milky Way
* study of nearby OB associations
* close approaches of stars to the
Solar System
The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar S ...
* studies of
binary star
A binary star is a system of two stars that are gravitationally bound to and in orbit around each other. Binary stars in the night sky that are seen as a single object to the naked eye are often resolved using a telescope as separate stars, in wh ...
orbits and masses
* the
HD 209458
HD 209458 is an 8th- magnitude star in the constellation Pegasus. It is a G0V star, and is thus very similar to the Sun. Because it is located at a distance of about 159 light years, it is not visible to the unaided eye. With good bino ...
planetary transits
* formation of the stellar
Galactic halo
A galactic halo is an extended, roughly spherical component of a galaxy which extends beyond the main, visible component. Several distinct components of galaxies comprise the halo:
* the stellar halo
* the galactic corona (hot gas, i.e. a plas ...
and thick disk
* the local density of matter in the Galaxy and the
Oort limit The Oort limit is a theoretical location at the outer limits of the Oort cloud, where the amount of comets and minor planets orbiting the Sun drops drastically, or drops entirely. The exact location of such a limit, if there is such one, is uncertai ...
*
ice age
An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gree ...
epochs and the Sun's path through the Galaxy
* local kinematics of K and M giants and the concept of superclusters
* an improved reference frame for long-term Earth rotation studies
* the local stellar velocity field in the Galaxy
* Identification of two possible "siblings" of the Sun (HIP 87382 and HIP 47399), to be studied for evidence of exoplanets
The Pleiades distance controversy
One controversial result has been the derived proximity, at about 120 parsecs, of the
Pleiades
The Pleiades (), also known as The Seven Sisters, Messier 45 and other names by different cultures, is an asterism and an open star cluster containing middle-aged, hot B-type stars in the north-west of the constellation Taurus. At a distance of ...
cluster, established both from the original catalogue as well as from the revised analysis. This has been contested by various other recent work, placing the mean cluster distance at around 130 parsecs.
According to a 2012 paper, the anomaly was due to the use of a weighted mean when there is a correlation between distances and distance errors for stars in clusters. It is resolved by using an unweighted mean. There is no systematic bias in the Hipparcos data when it comes to star clusters.
In August 2014, the discrepancy between the cluster distance of as measured by ''Hipparcos'' and the distance of derived with other techniques was confirmed by parallax measurements made using
VLBI
Very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) is a type of astronomical interferometry used in radio astronomy. In VLBI a signal from an astronomical radio source, such as a quasar, is collected at multiple radio telescopes on Earth or in space. T ...
, which gave , the most accurate and precise distance yet presented for the cluster.
Polaris
Another distance debate set-off by Hipparcos is for the distance to the star Polaris.
Observatory of Strasbourg
The Observatory of Strasbourg is an astronomical observatory in Strasbourg, France.
Following the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the city of Strasbourg became part of the German Empire. The University of Strasbourg was refounded in 187 ...
): proposer of space astrometry in 1967
*
Michael Perryman
Michael Perryman is a British astronomer, known for his work leading the Hipparcos and Gaia space astrometric projects.
Education
Michael Perryman studied theoretical physics at Cambridge University and received his doctorate from the Cavend ...
: ESA project scientist (1981–1997), and project manager during satellite operations (1989–1993)
* Catherine Turon (Observatoire de Paris-Meudon): leader of Input Catalogue Consortium
* Erik Høg: leader of the TDAC Consortium
* Lennart Lindegren ( Lund Observatory): leader of the NDAC Consortium
* Jean Kovalevsky: leader of the FAST Consortium
*
Adriaan Blaauw
Adriaan Blaauw (12 April 1914 – 1 December 2010) was a Dutch astronomer.
Blaauw was born in Amsterdam to Cornelis Blaauw and Gesina Clasina Zwart, and studied at Leiden University and the University of Groningen, obtaining his doctorate at the ...
: chair of the observing programme selection committee
* Hipparcos Science Team: Uli Bastian, Pierluigi Bernacca, Michel Crézé, Francesco Donati, Michel Grenon, Michael Grewing, Erik Høg, Jean Kovalevsky, Floor van Leeuwen, Lennart Lindegren, Hans van der Marel, Francois Mignard, Andrew Murray, Michael Perryman (chair), Rudolf Le Poole, Hans Schrijver, Catherine Turon
* Franco Emiliani: ESA project manager (1981–1985)
* Hamid Hassan: ESA project manager (1985–1989)
* Dietmar Heger: ESA/ESOC spacecraft operations manager
* Michel Bouffard: Matra Marconi Space project manager
* Bruno Strim: Alenia Spazio project manager
See also
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Gaia
In Greek mythology, Gaia (; from Ancient Greek , a poetical form of , 'land' or 'earth'),, , . also spelled Gaea , is the personification of the Earth and one of the Greek primordial deities. Gaia is the ancestral mother—sometimes parthenog ...