Skip to main content
European Commission logo print header

Extracting science from surveys of our Galaxy

Objective

The goal is to put in place the infrastructure required to extract the promised science for large surveys of our Galaxy that are underway and will culminate in ESA's Cornerstone Mission Gaia. Dynamical models are fundamental to this process because surveys are heavily biased by the Sun's location in the Galaxy. Novel dynamical models will be built and novel methods of fitting them to the data developed. With their help we will be able to constrain the distribution of dark matter in the Galaxy. By modelling the chemical and dynamical evolution of the Galaxy we expect to be able to infer much information about how the Galaxy was assembled, and thus test the prevailing cosmological paradigm. During the grant period we will be applying our tools to ground-based surveys, but the first version of the Gaia Catalogue will become available at the end of the grant period, and our goal is to have everything ready and tested for its prompt exploitation.

Call for proposal

ERC-2012-ADG_20120216
See other projects for this call

Host institution

THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
EU contribution
€ 1 954 460,00
Address
WELLINGTON SQUARE UNIVERSITY OFFICES
OX1 2JD Oxford
United Kingdom

See on map

Region
South East (England) Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Oxfordshire
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Administrative Contact
Gill Wells (Ms.)
Principal investigator
James Jeffrey Binney (Prof.)
Links
Total cost
No data

Beneficiaries (1)