GAIA data release 2 - very close objects

[Ags]

I did some analysis of the GAIA data this morning and there seem to be a large number of faint sources closer than Proxima Centauri.

I posted my observation here for verification:

https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/26131/very-near-gaia-dr2-sources-has-proxima-centauri-been-dethroned

Has anyone got any thoughts on this - I would have thought high parallax would have been one of the first things the data would have been checked for...?

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Curious. I will ask Amina Helmi, who is one of the leading lights in the GAIA projects, and works just across the road in the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute.

[Ags]

OK, let us know what they say. Will the IAU let me name source_id 4062964299525805952 I wonder?  

[Ags]

The issue is covered here:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1804.09366.pdf

The advice is basically to ignore all faint sources with high parallax (all are most likely due to close pairs of similar stars in crowded regions of the sky). Proxima is still the closest