Gaia Challenge III workshop at ICCUB of Universitat de Barcelona

From August 31^st to September 4^th the ICCUB of the Universitat de Barcelona held the third edition of the Gaia Challenge workshop. With almost 50 international participants, the aim of the workshop was to prepare the exploitation of Gaia data, the first release of which will be in about one year.

The format, as in previous editions, is that participants are invited to apply their favorite techniques to mock data in an effort to recover underlying physical quantities, like the gravitational potential and the phase-space structure of stars. The workshop is focused on comparing and discussing results, honing the various techniques, and building collaborations. The challenges are divided into four broad categories, namely Spherical & Triaxial, Discs & Extinction Map, Streams & Halo Stars, and Collisional Systems.

The workshop resulted a big success generating interesting discussions, new collaborations, and witnessing the challenges that Gaia data will post.