Abstract
The unprecedented quality of the astrometric measurements obtained with the ESA Gaia spacecraft have initiated a revolution in Milky Way astronomy. Studies of star clusters in particular have been transformed by the precise proper motions and parallaxes measured by Gaia over the entire sky as well as Gaia’s deep all-sky photometry. This paper presents an overview of the many topics of cluster science that have been impacted by the Gaia DR1, DR2, and EDR3 catalogues from their release to the end of the year 2021. These topics include the identification of known clusters and the discovery of new objects, the formation of young clusters and associations, and the long-term evolution of clusters and their stellar content. In addition to the abundance of scientific results, Gaia is changing the way astronomers work with high-volume and high-dimensionality datasets and is teaching us precious lessons to deal with its upcoming data releases and with the large-scale astronomical surveys of the future.
Highlights
This review aims at presenting the variety of observational studies pertaining to Milky Way star clusters that rely on Gaia data or on synergies with Gaia and documenting the immense impact Gaia’s
The first important contribution of Gaia to Milky Way cluster studies concerns the cluster census itself: where are the clusters located in the sky, what are their main properties, and which stars are members of these clusters? The most cited pre-Gaia catalogues of cluster parameters are the works of Dias et al [53] and Kharchenko et al [54]2
The Gaia data have unlocked a deluge of new results related to many astronomical topics and transformed our ability to study star clusters and stellar structures in the Milky Way
Summary
The ESA Gaia space mission [1,2] is one of the most successful projects in the history of astronomy. The spacecraft was launched in December 2013 and has since been performing repeated measurements of the positions of stars in the sky with unprecedented precision These measurements allow for the production of the deepest and most detailed two-dimensional map of the celestial sphere ever made and for repeated observations that enable the measurement of the apparent motions of stars (proper motions) and their annual parallaxes (which can, in turn, be used to estimate their distances). The EDR3 catalogue most notably contains improved astrometric solutions for 1.8 billion sources The availability of this enormous amount of all-sky data has enabled a deluge of scientific results and changed the working habits of many astronomers to the point that, according to Brown [7], Gaia has “quickly become an indispensable part of the astronomical ecosystem”. Brown [7] gives a historical overview of astrometry up to Gaia’s microarcsecond precision as well as selected science highlights showing Gaia’s contribution to astronomy, from Solar System and exoplanet science to the distant universe
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