Astronomy and Astrophysics
Aims: This article provides an overview of the survey methodology, the scientific aims, and the implementation, including a description of the data processing for the GIRAFFE spectra. A companion paper introduces the survey results.
Methods: Gaia-ESO aspires to quantify both random and systematic contributions to measurement uncertainties. Thus, all available spectroscopic analysis techniques are utilised, each spectrum being analysed by up to several different analysis pipelines, with considerable effort being made to homogenise and calibrate the resulting parameters. We describe here the sequence of activities up to delivery of processed data products to the ESO Science Archive Facility for open use.
Results: The Gaia-ESO Survey obtained 202 000 spectra of 115 000 stars using 340 allocated VLT nights between December 2011 and January 2018 from GIRAFFE and UVES.
Conclusions: The full consistently reduced final data set of spectra was released through the ESO Science Archive Facility in late 2020, with the full astrophysical parameters sets following in 2022. A companion article reviews the survey implementation, scientific highlights, the open cluster survey, and data products.
This project aims at the searching, observation and analysis of massive stars in nearby galaxies to provide a solid empirical ground to understand their physical properties as a function of those key parameters that gobern their evolution (i.e. mass, spin, metallicity, mass loss, and binary interaction). Massive stars are central objects to
Low- to intermediate-mass (M < 8 solar masses, Ms) stars represent the majority of stars in the Cosmos. They finish their lives on the Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) - just before they form planetary nebulae (PNe) - where they experience complex nucleosynthetic and molecular processes. AGB stars are important contributors to the enrichment of the
Several spectroscopic analyses of stars with planets have recently been carried out. One of the most remarkable results is that planet-harbouring stars are on average more metal-rich than solar-type disc stars. Two main explanations have been suggested to link this metallicity excess with the presence of planets. The first of these, the “self
Stellar spectroscopy allows us to determine the properties and chemical compositions of stars. From this information for stars of different ages in the Milky Way, it is possible to reconstruct the chemical evolution of the Galaxy, as well as the origin of the elements heavier than boron, created mainly in stellar interiors. It is also possible to