Gaia Workshop: bringing stellar exploration closer to students

Work experience students at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL) had the pleasure of participating in a workshop held by George Seabroke at the MSSL Work Experience Week 2015. The workshop gave students the opportunity to use the same software, called TOPCAT, that astronomers use to explore a star catalogue, like the ones Gaia will produce.

During the workshop students worked with “The Geneva-Copenhagen survey of the Solar neighbourhood“, which provides ground-based radial velocities to complement space astrometry from Gaia’s predecessor satellite Hipparcos. This data set allows students to explore how stars move in the Solar neighbourhood. The workshop teaches students how astronomers analyse large data sets and tries to capture the excitement of being an astronomer by leading the students to make a “new” discovery!

Now, thanks to George Seabroke’s contribution, you can also have the opportunity to take part in this workshop by downloading the materials used in it, which are already collected in Gaiaverse Resources. You will find in there two documents in a .RAR file: one with the entire instructions to successfully run the software and explore the 13,139 stars of the catalogue, and another one containing the star catalogue itself. As an introduction to the concepts used in the workshop, you can also view the presentation delivered by George Seabroke at the MSSL Work Experience Week 2015, just prior to the start of the workshop.