A Hipparcos study of the Hyades open cluster. Improved colour-absolute magnitude and Hertzsprung-Russell diagrams

Wetensch. publicatieFaculteit der Wiskunde en Natuurwetenschappe

Radial velocities of early-type stars in the Perseus OB2 association

Wetensch. publicatieFaculteit der Wiskunde en Natuurwetenschappe

Origin of the Local Bubble

We present a new unbiased search for OB associations in the Solar neighbourhood which have hosted the progenitor stars of the core collapse supernovae responsible for the Local Bubble in the interstellar gas. For this purpose we have analyzed a volume complete set (with a diameter of 400 pc) of B stars drawn from the Hipparcos catalogue and the Arivel data base, from which candidate members were selected by a kinematical criterion. After careful dereddening the star colours we have constructed a colour-magnitude diagram and confirmed that the Upper Scorpius, Upper Centaurus Lupus, and Lower Centaurus Crux subgroups of the Sco OB2 association are the youngest nearby OB associations. We dated their ages with theoretical isochrones in the range of 20–30 Myr, in agreement with previous work. We have traced backwards in time the paths of the stars and found that they entered the volume of the present bubble at 10 to 15 Myr ago. We argue that the Local Bubble began to form then and estimate that 14 to 20 supernovae have exploded since. The implied energy input into the ambient medium can be shown to be sufficient to excavate a bubble of the presently observed size

Low-mass pre--main-sequence stars in the Magellanic Clouds

[Abridged] The stellar Initial Mass Function (IMF) suggests that sub-solar stars form in very large numbers. Most attractive places for catching low-mass star formation in the act are young stellar clusters and associations, still (half-)embedded in star-forming regions. The low-mass stars in such regions are still in their pre--main-sequence (PMS) evolutionary phase. The peculiar nature of these objects and the contamination of their samples by the evolved populations of the Galactic disk impose demanding observational techniques for the detection of complete numbers of PMS stars in the Milky Way. The Magellanic Clouds, the companion galaxies to our own, demonstrate an exceptional star formation activity. The low extinction and stellar field contamination in star-forming regions of these galaxies imply a more efficient detection of low-mass PMS stars than in the Milky Way, but their distance from us make the application of special detection techniques unfeasible. Nonetheless, imaging with the Hubble Space Telescope yield the discovery of solar and sub-solar PMS stars in the Magellanic Clouds from photometry alone. Unprecedented numbers of such objects are identified as the low-mass stellar content of their star-forming regions, changing completely our picture of young stellar systems outside the Milky Way, and extending the extragalactic stellar IMF below the persisting threshold of a few solar masses. This review presents the recent developments in the investigation of PMS stars in the Magellanic Clouds, with special focus on the limitations by single-epoch photometry that can only be circumvented by the detailed study of the observable behavior of these stars in the color-magnitude diagram. The achieved characterization of the low-mass PMS stars in the Magellanic Clouds allowed thus a more comprehensive understanding of the star formation process in our neighboring galaxies.Comment: Review paper, 26 pages (in LaTeX style for Springer journals), 4 figures. Accepted for publication in Space Science Review

Gaia Early Data Release 3: The celestial reference frame (Gaia-CRF3)

Context. Gaia-CRF3 is the celestial reference frame for positions and proper motions in the third release of data from the Gaia mission, Gaia DR3 (and for the early third release, Gaia EDR3, which contains identical astrometric results). The reference frame is defined by the positions and proper motions at epoch 2016.0 for a specific set of extragalactic sources in the (E)DR3 catalogue. Aims. We describe the construction of Gaia-CRF3 and its properties in terms of the distributions in magnitude, colour, and astrometric quality. Methods. Compact extragalactic sources in Gaia DR3 were identified by positional cross-matching with 17 external catalogues of quasi-stellar objects (QSO) and active galactic nuclei (AGN), followed by astrometric filtering designed to remove stellar contaminants. Selecting a clean sample was favoured over including a higher number of extragalactic sources. For the final sample, the random and systematic errors in the proper motions are analysed, as well as the radio-optical offsets in position for sources in the third realisation of the International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF3). Results. Gaia-CRF3 comprises about 1.6 million QSO-like sources, of which 1.2 million have five-parameter astrometric solutions in Gaia DR3 and 0.4 million have six-parameter solutions. The sources span the magnitude range G = 13-21 with a peak density at 20.6 mag, at which the typical positional uncertainty is about 1 mas. The proper motions show systematic errors on the level of 12 μas yr-1 on angular scales greater than 15 deg. For the 3142 optical counterparts of ICRF3 sources in the S/X frequency bands, the median offset from the radio positions is about 0.5 mas, but it exceeds 4 mas in either coordinate for 127 sources. We outline the future of Gaia-CRF in the next Gaia data releases. Appendices give further details on the external catalogues used, how to extract information about the Gaia-CRF3 sources, potential (Galactic) confusion sources, and the estimation of the spin and orientation of an astrometric solution

Gaia Early Data Release 3: acceleration of the solar system from Gaia astrometry

Stars and planetary system

Gaia early data release 3: summary of the contents and survey properties (Corrigendum)

ERRATUMThis article is an erratum for:[https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202039657]​​​​​​​Instrumentatio

Gaia Early Data Release 3: the Gaia catalogue of nearby stars

Stars and planetary system

Gaia Data Release 3: reflectance spectra of Solar System small bodies

Stars and planetary system

Gaia Data Release 3: the extragalactic content

Galaxie