Within the framework of the Gaia project, the group of the Virtual Observatory (VO), an international initiative with the aim of creating a federation of astronomical data archives worldwide, has developed two analytical tools to allow astronomers work quickly and precisely with all the information that exists in the Virtual Observatory about the Gaia objects: VOSA and Clusterix. Carme Jordi and Lola Balaguer-Núñez, researchers from the ICCUB, have participated in the development of one of these tools, Clusterix.

Gaia is expected to significantly increase the number of known star clusters, but it is necessary to determine the physical parameters of their members, checking that they share common properties different from the stars in their vicinity. To facilitate this huge task, the VO group, in collaboration with scientists from the University of Barcelona (ICCUB-IEEC), have developed a tool that compiles all the known information about a determined object, such as its movements and distances, in order to visualize and assign a membership probability to each star in a cluster area, in a simple and efficient way for the astronomer (see figure 2).

On the other hand, to be able to know more physical fundamental parameters of the stars, it is necessary to complement the information provided by Gaia with measurements in other wavelengths, from ultraviolet to infrared and analyze that data compared with theoretical models. The VOSA tool, developed by the CAB (CSIC-INTA) in collaboration with scientist from Valparaiso University (Chile), performs this process automatically for thousands of objects at the same time.

Press release from CAB (in Spanish) attached.