The power of micro-arcsecond ($mu$as) astrometry is about to be unleashed. ESAs Gaia mission, now headed towards the end of the first year of routine science operations, will soon fulfil its promise for revolutionary science in countless aspects of Galactic astronomy and astrophysics. The potential of Gaia position measurements for important contributions to the astrophysics of planetary systems is huge. We focus here on the expectations for detection and improved characterization of young planetary systems in the neighborhood of the Sun using a combination of Gaia $mu$as astrometry and direct imaging techniques.
The wealth of information in the Gaia catalogue of exoplanets will constitute a fundamental contribution to several hot topics of the astrophysics of planetary systems. I briefly review the potential impact of Gaia micro-arsec astrometry in several areas of exoplanet science, discuss what key follow-up observations might be required as a complement to Gaia data, and shed some light on the role of next generation astrometric facilities in the arena of planetary systems.
In this article we present an overview of the ESA Gaia mission and of the unprecedented impact that Gaia will have on the field of variable star research. We summarise the contents and impact of the first Gaia data release on the description of variability phenomena, with particular emphasis on pulsating star research. The Tycho-Gaia astrometric solution, although limited to 2.1 million stars, has been used in many studies related to pulsating stars. Furthermore a set of 3,194 Cepheids and RR Lyrae stars with their times series have been released. Finally we present the plans for the ongoing study of variable phenomena with Gaia and highlight some of the possible impacts of the second data release on variable, and specifically, pulsating stars.
In its all-sky survey, Gaia will monitor astrometrically hundreds of thousands of main-sequence stars within $approx200$ pc, looking for the presence of giant planetary companions within a few AUs from their host stars. Indeed, Gaia observations will have great impact is the astrophysics of planetary systems (e.g., Casertano et al. 2008), in particular when seen as a complement to other techniques for planet detection and characterization (e.g., Sozzetti 2011). In this paper, I briefly address some of the relevant technical issues associated with the precise and accurate determination of astrometric orbits of planetary systems using Gaia data. I then highlight some of the important synergies between Gaia high-precision astrometry and other ongoing and planned, indirect and direct planet-finding and characterization programs, both from the ground and in space, and over a broad range of wavelengths, providing preliminary results related to one specific example of such synergies.
Gaia is an astrometric mission that will be launched in spring 2013. There are many scientific outcomes from this mission and as far as our Solar System is concerned, the satellite will be able to map thousands of main belt asteroids (MBAs) and near-Earth objects (NEOs) down to magnitude < 20. The high precision astrometry (0.3-5 mas of accuracy) will allow orbital improvement, mass determination, and a better accuracy in the prediction and ephemerides of potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs). We give in this paper some simulation tests to analyse the impact of Gaia data on known asteroids orbit, and their value for the analysis of NEOs through the example of asteroid (99942) Apophis. We then present the need for a follow-up network for newly discovered asteroids by Gaia, insisting on the synergy of ground and space data for the orbital improvement.
With the publication of Gaia DR2, 1.3 billion stars now have public parallax and proper motion measurements. In this contribution, we compare the results for sources that have both optical and radio measurements, focusing on circumstellar masers. For these large, variable and bright AGB stars, the VLBI astrometry results can be more robust. Moreover, there are a number of applications where VLBI astrometry provides unique data for studying stellar populations and Galactic structure. The BeSSel project not only provides parallax and proper motions at much larger distances than Gaia can reach, but it also uniquely samples the spiral arms of the Galaxy. The evolved stars in the BAaDE sample can potentially constrain the dynamics and stellar content of the inner bulge and bar of the Milky Way, not reachable in the optical.