Is there a Hyper Gaia Project?

[StarMen76]

I read that Gaia, compared to Hipparchus, increased the number of known parallaxes by 10 thousand times in 20 years. Is there a project that will increase Gaia's results again by 10 thousand times in another 20 years? Around the middle of the century?

Has anyone heard of such a future project? 
I calculated that if to increase the sensitivity of Gaia by 10 thousand times, then its size Gaia must be increased exactly 100 times. Then such a telescope will catalog stars 30th magnitude. The mass of such a telescope should be almost a about 200 thousand tons. This does not seem fantastic if you look at the successes of SpaceX. The final mass of their Starlink constellation is estimated at 60 thousand tons. Of course, with new technologies, the mass of the telescope should be less. Everyone knows that a square meter of the Webb telescope mirror weighs an order of magnitude less than a square meter of the Hubble telescope mirror.

I assume that such a telescope will not be too expensive in terms of financial costs. The Hipparchus and Gaia projects are equal in cost to each other, although the second observatory received a thousand times more data.

Edited December 16, 2023 by StarMen76

[StarMen76]

 

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I calculated that if to increase the sensitivity of Gaia by 10 thousand times, then its size Gaia must be increased exactly 100 times. Then such a telescope will catalog stars 30th magnitude. 

 

For a significant breakthrough in astrometry, the sensitivity of the new telescope should really be close to 30 magnitude. For Hipparchus the limit of sensitivity was close to magnitude 10, for Gaia it was close to magnitude 20. The next step should be all-celestial astrometry at magnitude 30. While such objects are available only to Hubble and Webb, famous Halley’s Comet is now approximately the same magnitude.

[Gfamily]

One of the limits to the distance measurable by parallax is the size of the orbit about the sun. If we could move a Gaia equivalent to the orbit of Jupiter, we'd increase the distance by a factor of about 5 (under current technology). However, that would be so much data that we'd need significantl improvements in data transmission from deep space.

I find it interesting that Gaia is incapable of accurately measuring the parallax of stars brighter than 3rd magnitude - so most of the stars we would instantly recognise are inherently less accurately measured. This is simply because their light bleeds out from the sensor pixels.

 

[StarMen76]

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One of the limits to the distance measurable by parallax is the size of the orbit about the sun. If we could move a Gaia equivalent to the orbit of Jupiter, we'd increase the distance by a factor of about 5 (under current technology). However, that would be so much data that we'd need significantl improvements in data transmission from deep space.

I agree, this is important. If we send Gaia to Alpha Centauri, we will be able to measure the distance to the most distant galaxies. This is important, since astronomers still use indirect estimates to measure extragalactic distances, such as Cepheids or supernovae. Nobody knows how accurate this is.

But Gaia only has a meter telescope and sees very few stars and galaxies. According to calculations, in order to catalog half of the stars in our galaxy, it is necessary to observe up to magnitude 27. We need to know about all the stars in the Milky Way. For this reason, Hyper Gaia must be observed in the near-infrared, like the Webb telescope. It is in this range that red dwarfs are brightest and we can observe them through dust clouds. The infrared range reduces the requirements for the precision of the mirror surface.

 

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However, that would be so much data that we'd need significantl improvements in data transmission from deep space.

Everything is simple here. Most likely, by mid-century, most data transmission from spacecraft will switch from radio to laser. This will radically reduce the area of solar panels. Probably by 2-3 orders of magnitude.
Thousands of Starlink satellites already use lasers to transmit data. Or compare the field of view of radio telescopes and the diameter of a laser beam on the Moon. The difference is close to a thousand times.

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I find it interesting that Gaia is incapable of accurately measuring the parallax of stars brighter than 3rd magnitude - so most of the stars we would instantly recognise are inherently less accurately measured. This is simply because their light bleeds out from the sensor pixels.

There the limit is close to magnitude 6. To cross Gaia, it is necessary to reduce the duration of exposures. This is a common phenomenon in astronomy. For example, for  superproject LSST this limit is close to magnitude 16.

Edited December 16, 2023 by StarMen76

[robin_astro]

On 16/12/2023 at 09:45, StarMen76 said:

For a significant breakthrough in astrometry, the sensitivity of the new telescope should really be close to 30 magnitude. For Hipparchus the limit of sensitivity was close to magnitude 10, for Gaia it was close to magnitude 20. The next step should be all-celestial astrometry at magnitude 30. While such objects are available only to Hubble and Webb, famous Halley’s Comet is now approximately the same magnitude.

Isn't Gaia distance measurement limited by the precision to which the parallax can be be measured rather than brightness? (There are plenty of objects brighter than mag 20 which are well beyond  the limits  of Gaia parallax measurement . )  Without increasing the parallax precision by for example increasing the baseline A "large aperture Gaia" would not add much new distance information, just some intermediate points from less luminous objects.

Robin

[robin_astro]

On 16/12/2023 at 10:14, StarMen76 said:

We need to know about all the stars in the Milky Way.

Not really. You just need a statistically valid sample and knowledge of stellar populations.

Robin

[robin_astro]

On 16/12/2023 at 09:02, StarMen76 said:

I read that Gaia, compared to Hipparchus, increased the number of known parallaxes by 10 thousand times in 20 years. Is there a project that will increase Gaia's results again by 10 thousand times in another 20 years? Around the middle of the century?

Has anyone heard of such a future project? 
I calculated that if to increase the sensitivity of Gaia by 10 thousand times, then its size Gaia must be increased exactly 100 times. T

You have misunderstood where the ability of Gaia to measure a larger number of parallaxes measurable by Gaia comes from. While it is true that Gaia can measure fainter objects, the main advantage of Gaia over Hipparchus is due to its ability to measure parallax to greater precision hence also extending the rage to smaller parallaxes (greater distances). This is mostly due to technological advances, not the increase in aperture (For example Gaia uses wide field CCD cameras allowing direct measurements of angles between objects whereas Hipparchus had to measure each object independently)

Cheers

Robin

Edited December 17, 2023 by robin_astro

[robin_astro]

For Hipparchus read Hipparcos everywhere 😉