Abstract The scientific aim of ESA's space astrometry mission HIPPARCOS is the accurate determination of astrometric data for a large number of celestial bodies. Due for launch in 1986, the final outcome of the mission, after a nominal lifetime of 2.5 years, will be a fully coherent catalogue of positions, parallaxes, and annual proper motions, each with a precision of typically 0.002 arcsec, for about 100 000 pre-selected stars distributed approximately uniformly over the whole sky. A complete survey of all stars down to about B = 8–9 mag is presently anticipated, along with a selection of stars down to the limiting magnitude of about B = 13 mag, chosen by virtue of their particular astrometric or astrophysical importance. At the same time a supplementary stellar catalogue, TYCHO, will be generated. This will contain astrometric data (positions tied to the HIPPARCOS system with an accuracy of 0.05 arcsec or better) and photometric data (two-colour measurements at some 50 or more epochs accurate to 0.03–0.1 mag) for all stars down to about B = 11–12 mag, thus comprising some 400 000 or more additional stars. A summary of the principal scientific objectives, a description of the payload, and an overview of the scientific coordination and of the processing of the scientific data is presented.


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    Title :

    The HIPPARCOS space astrometry mission


    Contributors:

    Published in:

    Publication date :

    1983-01-01


    Size :

    8 pages




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English