[séminaire] Theia: faint objects in motion or the new astrometry frontier

by Fabien Malbet

Tuesday 4 Jul 2017, 11:00 → 12:00 Europe/Paris

Grand Amphi (LPSC)

Theia is a new satellite mission proposed for the ESA medium mission M5 based on relative astrometry and extreme precision to study the motion of very faint objects in the Universe. Theia is primarily designed to study the local dark matter properties, the existence of Earth-like exoplanets in the nearest star systems and the physics of compact objects. With an optical (350-1000nm) on-axis TMA telescope and its unique metrology system, thanks to a “point and stare” strategy, Theia is set up to reach sub micro-arcsecond precision. This is about 1000 times better than ESA/Gaia’s accuracy for the brightest objects and is about a factor 10-30 improvement for the faintest objects.