| Issue |
EAS Publications Series
Volume 2, 2002
GAIA: A European Space Project
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Page(s) | 171 - 178 | |
| Section | Section III: Astronomic Impact on Stellar Astronomy | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/eas:2002015 | |
| Published online | 25 September 2002 | |
O. Bienaymé and C. Turon (eds)
EAS Publications Series, 2 (2002) 171-178
Absolute Luminosities of Stellar Candles
1
Dept. Astronomia, Universitat de Barcelona, Diagonal 647,
08028 Barcelona, Spain
2
Institut d'Estudis Espacials de Catalunya, Spain
Stellar candles are the basic tools to determine the extragalactic distance scale. Its use relies on some given fundamental relation that allows to estimate the absolute magnitude of an object from observable parameters and from that its distance. The Hipparcos mission greatly contributed to the refinement of these fundamental relations, but even with its milliarcsecond-precision data, the uncertainties in the calibration of Stellar Candles are still high. To improve these results larger samples and higher astrometric precision are needed. GAIA, with its microarcsecond, one-billion objects catalogue, will provide all the necessary data for this task.
© EAS, EDP Sciences, 2002