Galactic Archaeology with the Gaia data

银河系是一个盘状星系，我们可以非常详细地观察和研究跨越广泛的年龄和金属丰度的单个恒星。我们观察到的较老的恒星是恒星化石，包含了银河系形成时代的信息。对它们的化学和运动学性质的研究被称为“银河系考古学”。欧空局的盖亚使命（2013年12月发射）将在未来十年内彻底改变银河考古学，建立在正在进行的地面项目基础上。穆拉德空间科学实验室（MSSL）在盖亚的使命开发和光谱学方面的数据处理联合体中都发挥着重要作用。该项目将利用盖亚数据结合各种地基光谱巡天数据，从这些观测数据中揭开银河系的质量分布（包括恒星和暗物质）以及银河系的形成历史

The Milky Way is the one disk galaxy that we can observe in great detail and study individual stars that span a wide range of ages and metallicities. The older stars that we observe are stellar fossils, containing information from the epoch of Galaxy formation. Studies of their chemical and kinematic properties are known as ''Galactic Archaeology''. The ESA's Gaia mission (launched in Dec. 2013) is set to revolutionise Galactic Archaeology over the coming decade, building upon ongoing ground-based projects. Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL) has major roles both in the mission development of Gaia and in the data processing consortium for the spectroscopy aspect. The project will exploit the Gaia data combined with the various ground-based spectroscopic survey data, and unveil the mass distribution (both stellar and dark matter) of the Milky Way and the formation history of the Milky Way from these observational data