Date
The Gaia UB group with the Joan Oró Telescope at Montsec has participated in the elaboration of the light curve of the microlensing event Gaia 16aye which is the image of the week of the ESA's Gaia page.
The lens of the Gaia16aye event, a little unusual because it was found towards the Galactic spiral arms, is likely to be a binary star system.
Gaia16aye is the perfect example of the importance of ground-based follow-up of Gaia Alerts, carried out by professionals but also by amateur astronomers, which can make a huge scientific impact
The Gaia Science Alerts project has already reported more than 1000 transient events, mainly dominated by supernovae and cataclysmic variables. In July and August 2016 the first microlensing events were detected. Microlensing happens when light rays from a distant star (we call this the source) are bent by the space-time curvature of an object (e.g. a star, a planet, or a black hole), lying exactly between the observer and the distant star. This hitherto unseen object is called the lens, and being closer to us, and moving faster across the sky, leads to a sometimes dramatic increase (and then decrease) in the brightness of the background source. These two Gaia events are a little unusual, because they were found towards the Galactic spiral arms, while most microlensing events are found in studies which concentrate on the central region (the Bulge) of the Milky Way.
The first microlensing event, called Gaia16aua, was identified independently by both Gaia and by the ground-based Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE). The second microlensing event, called Gaia16aye, might be even more exciting showing an interesting lightcurve as shown in the figure above.
Gaia16aye has been followed-up from the ground very intensively and more than 6000 data points were collected so far by a dedicated follow-up team (listed at the end). The light curve of the event exhibits characteristic U-shaped changes and sudden sharp increases and decreases in brightness. These distinctive features are typical for a microlensing event when the lens is not a single object, but rather a pair. In this case the lens is likely to be a binary star system sitting in its complicated space-time geometry. This creates caustics, which lead to sudden jumps in brightness when crossed by the light rays from the lensed source.
As can be seen in the figure, the model predicts another sharp rise in brightness which is expected to happen in the first or second week of November 2016. We are currently waiting for the final predicted re-brightening, which will help solve the puzzle of the exact nature of the components of the binary system. Gaia16aye is the perfect example of the importance of ground-based follow-up of Gaia Alerts, carried out by professionals but also by amateur astronomers, which can make a huge scientific impact. Indeed, it would have been quite difficult to confirm Gaia16aye as a microlensing event without the extra follow-up, and certainly the binary nature of the lens, and constraints on the system components would be impossible.
Gaia Alerts
The Gaia satellite is an European Space Agency mission to map out our own galaxy, the Milky Way. To do this, Gaia will look at the entire sky over and over for five years, so that it can track the positions of the stars over time. But while Gaia is looking at the sky, it will also spot thousands of transients.
A transient is anything which appears, disappears or changes in the sky. Some of these transients can be stars exploding as supernovae, or black holes swallowing stars. The Gaia Alerts project is working to find out such events in the data from Gaia, and announce them to the world in real time.
When a transient is detected by Gaia an alert is triggered and the follow-up network of ground-based telescopes starts its work in order to give more information about the phenomenon.
The Gaia Science Alert Project invites amateur astronomers and scholars to contribute to the investigations. The information about participation terms are available at https://gaia.ac.uk/alerts
Joan Oró Telescope (TJO)
The Observatori Astronòmic del Montsec with the Telescopi Joan Oró is the third most contributing observatory among all of the participants in the Gaia photometric science alert project.
Telescopi Joan Oró has the capability to change the observatory scheduling in real time with the minimal human interaction as requires the Transient phenomena.
More information on Montsec Observatory can be found at www.oadm.cat/en/.
ESA news
The observatories already involved in following up this event are:
AAVSO, USA
APT2, Italy
Aristarchos Telescope, Greece
ASAS-SN, Hawaii, USA
Asiago, Italy
ASV, Serbia
Bialkow, Poland
Kryoneri, Greece
Leicester University, UK
LCOGT/SUPAscope network
Liverpool Telescope, La Palma, Spain
Loiano, INAF-OABO, Italy
Joan Oró Telescope, Montsec, Spain
Mercator, La Palma, Spain
Montarrenti, Italy
NOT, La Palma, Spain
Ondrejov, Czechia
OmicronC2PU, France
Ostrowik, Poland
Palomar 200-inch telescope (P200), Caltech, USA
PIRATE, Tenerife, Spain
pt5m, La Palma, Spain
RTT150, Turkey
SALT, South Africa
Skinakas, Greece
Sternberg Observatory, Russia
T100, Turkey
T60, Turkey
UBT60, Turkey
University College London, UK
Watcher, South Africa
Wise, Israel
Yerkes-41, USA
The lens of the Gaia16aye event, a little unusual because it was found towards the Galactic spiral arms, is likely to be a binary star system.
Gaia16aye is the perfect example of the importance of ground-based follow-up of Gaia Alerts, carried out by professionals but also by amateur astronomers, which can make a huge scientific impact
The Gaia Science Alerts project has already reported more than 1000 transient events, mainly dominated by supernovae and cataclysmic variables. In July and August 2016 the first microlensing events were detected. Microlensing happens when light rays from a distant star (we call this the source) are bent by the space-time curvature of an object (e.g. a star, a planet, or a black hole), lying exactly between the observer and the distant star. This hitherto unseen object is called the lens, and being closer to us, and moving faster across the sky, leads to a sometimes dramatic increase (and then decrease) in the brightness of the background source. These two Gaia events are a little unusual, because they were found towards the Galactic spiral arms, while most microlensing events are found in studies which concentrate on the central region (the Bulge) of the Milky Way.
The first microlensing event, called Gaia16aua, was identified independently by both Gaia and by the ground-based Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE). The second microlensing event, called Gaia16aye, might be even more exciting showing an interesting lightcurve as shown in the figure above.
Gaia16aye has been followed-up from the ground very intensively and more than 6000 data points were collected so far by a dedicated follow-up team (listed at the end). The light curve of the event exhibits characteristic U-shaped changes and sudden sharp increases and decreases in brightness. These distinctive features are typical for a microlensing event when the lens is not a single object, but rather a pair. In this case the lens is likely to be a binary star system sitting in its complicated space-time geometry. This creates caustics, which lead to sudden jumps in brightness when crossed by the light rays from the lensed source.
As can be seen in the figure, the model predicts another sharp rise in brightness which is expected to happen in the first or second week of November 2016. We are currently waiting for the final predicted re-brightening, which will help solve the puzzle of the exact nature of the components of the binary system. Gaia16aye is the perfect example of the importance of ground-based follow-up of Gaia Alerts, carried out by professionals but also by amateur astronomers, which can make a huge scientific impact. Indeed, it would have been quite difficult to confirm Gaia16aye as a microlensing event without the extra follow-up, and certainly the binary nature of the lens, and constraints on the system components would be impossible.
Gaia Alerts
The Gaia satellite is an European Space Agency mission to map out our own galaxy, the Milky Way. To do this, Gaia will look at the entire sky over and over for five years, so that it can track the positions of the stars over time. But while Gaia is looking at the sky, it will also spot thousands of transients.
A transient is anything which appears, disappears or changes in the sky. Some of these transients can be stars exploding as supernovae, or black holes swallowing stars. The Gaia Alerts project is working to find out such events in the data from Gaia, and announce them to the world in real time.
When a transient is detected by Gaia an alert is triggered and the follow-up network of ground-based telescopes starts its work in order to give more information about the phenomenon.
The Gaia Science Alert Project invites amateur astronomers and scholars to contribute to the investigations. The information about participation terms are available at https://gaia.ac.uk/alerts
Joan Oró Telescope (TJO)
The Observatori Astronòmic del Montsec with the Telescopi Joan Oró is the third most contributing observatory among all of the participants in the Gaia photometric science alert project.
Telescopi Joan Oró has the capability to change the observatory scheduling in real time with the minimal human interaction as requires the Transient phenomena.
More information on Montsec Observatory can be found at www.oadm.cat/en/.
ESA news
The observatories already involved in following up this event are:
AAVSO, USA
APT2, Italy
Aristarchos Telescope, Greece
ASAS-SN, Hawaii, USA
Asiago, Italy
ASV, Serbia
Bialkow, Poland
Kryoneri, Greece
Leicester University, UK
LCOGT/SUPAscope network
Liverpool Telescope, La Palma, Spain
Loiano, INAF-OABO, Italy
Joan Oró Telescope, Montsec, Spain
Mercator, La Palma, Spain
Montarrenti, Italy
NOT, La Palma, Spain
Ondrejov, Czechia
OmicronC2PU, France
Ostrowik, Poland
Palomar 200-inch telescope (P200), Caltech, USA
PIRATE, Tenerife, Spain
pt5m, La Palma, Spain
RTT150, Turkey
SALT, South Africa
Skinakas, Greece
Sternberg Observatory, Russia
T100, Turkey
T60, Turkey
UBT60, Turkey
University College London, UK
Watcher, South Africa
Wise, Israel
Yerkes-41, USA
