Valuable insights into the thermospheric mass density and horizontal winds can be obtained from satellites equipped with accelerometers. To derive these quantities, radiation pressure must be accurately modeled and removed from the calibrated accelerometer measurements. However, the documented surface reflection and absorption coefficients, as well as the satellite’s thermal properties, are often inaccurate or, in some cases, even absent. This study presents a method for optimizing these parameters jointly with the accelerometer scale factors. Focusing on GRACE data from 2009, a case where radiation pressure was dominant over aerodynamic force, enabled us to refine the radiation pressure model without detrimental effects from errors in aerodynamic force modeling. We evaluated three variants of estimating the scale factor: estimating no accelerometer scale factors, only the y-axis scale factor, or both the y- and z-axis scale factors. We use the difference between the measured and modeled accelerations (the residual) as our target functional. Estimating both scale factors yielded the lowest residual for both GRACE satellites, even though the radiation pressure model was tuned using GRACE-A data only. After the optimization, we observed a systematic feature in the cross-track residuals within the geographical domain, which strongly correlates with the magnetic field vector experienced by the spacecraft. While its cause remains unknown, we introduced an empirical correction that effectively removed the feature and significantly increased consistency between GRACE-A and GRACE-B. Overall, we were able to reduce the RMS of the residuals by more than 13% in the cross-track direction and 32% in the radial direction, indicating a significant increase in modeling accuracy. The presented method provides a generalizable approach that can also be applied to future satellite missions with accelerometers.

The Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) satellite, which operated at an altitude of ∼250km, provided neutral thermosphere mass density and crosswind observations in the dawn-dusk sectors throughout most of its operational lifetime (2009–2013). As a result of its Sun-synchronous orbit, GOCE’s large solar panels remained at a near-perpendicular angle to the incoming solar radiation, leading to a significant radiation pressure acceleration. In this research, we focused on revisiting and reprocessing GOCE thermosphere mass density and crosswind data. We selected the coefficients describing the thermo-optical surface properties and employed a high-fidelity satellite geometry in a ray-racing simulation. Additionally, we distinguished between the solar flux in the visible and infrared bands and introduced a model for the satellite’s thermal emission. The availability of the in situ thermistor measurements allowed for the validation of the thermal model. Moreover, we replaced the Level-1b ion thruster data with raw telemetry, filling multiple data gaps. We analysed how incremental improvements in the radiation pressure modelling affected the observed crosswind speed. By replacing the panel model with the high-fidelity satellite geometry, the crosswind speed decreased up to 5 ms⁻¹. The biggest difference reduction of 40ms⁻¹resulted from introducing the thermal model. Splitting the solar flux further decreases the observed crosswind speed by up to 8ms⁻¹. The reduction in crosswind speed was most prominent during the first years of the mission when the solar activity was low. We compared the newly processed GOCE zonal wind data with respect to the most recent previous release. We observed a median absolute deviation decrease of 10 ms⁻¹around the south magnetic pole in the dawn sector. The yearly consistency of low-latitude zonal winds did not change significantly. The main obstacle in quantifying the improvement compared to the previous crosswind dataset stemmed from the fact that the previous and new datasets were generated with different crosswind estimation algorithms. The difference in thermosphere density compared to previously published datasets is minor since the effect of radiation pressure is most prominent in the cross-track direction. Finally, we verified the assumption about the energy accommodation coefficient of 0.82 and concluded that it remains valid after implementing the radiation pressure modelling improvements.

Uncertainties in radiation pressure modelling play a significant role in the thermospheric density and crosswind observations derived from the GRACE-FO accelerometer, especially during low solar activity. Under such conditions, the radiation pressure acceleration matches the magnitude of the aerodynamic acceleration along the track and exceeds it in the cross-track direction. The GRACE-FO mission has been operating for several years at such high altitudes during both low and rising solar activity, providing a perfect opportunity to study the effects of radiation pressure. This research uses ray tracing based on a high-fidelity satellite geometry model to calculate the radiation pressure acceleration. We numerically fine-tuned the coefficients describing the thermo-optical surface properties to obtain more accurate radiation pressure accelerations than those specified in the GRACE-FO mission manual. We also used in situ temperature measurements from thermistors on the solar arrays to model the satellite's thermal emission. These temperature measurements allowed a realistic setup of the thermal model, extended by the parameter describing the efficiency of the solar cells, and reproduced the acceleration of the thermal emission with an accuracy of RMS 0.148 nms⁻². The combination of the updated thermal model and the fine-tuning of the surface coefficients improved the accuracy of the crosswind acceleration to an RMS of 0.55 nms⁻², compared to an RMS of 4.22 nms⁻² when using panel models and instantaneous thermal radiation. We compared the observed crosswind with two models: HWM14 and TIE-GCM. While both models capture most of the salient features of the observed crosswind, HWM14 shows particularly good agreement at high latitudes. Compared to the previously employed radiation pressure model, the crosswind observations have been improved in low and mid-latitudes, especially during periods of higher solar activity. Since the effect of radiation pressure is most significant in the crosswind direction, the effect on density was small compared to previously published datasets.

Context. The third Gaia data release provides photometric time series covering 34 months for about 10 million stars. For many of those stars, a characterisation in Fourier space and their variability classification are also provided. This paper focuses on intermediate- to high-mass (IHM) main sequence pulsators (M'a ¥''1.3'M') of spectral types O, B, A, or F, known as β Cep, slowly pulsating B (SPB), δ Sct, and γ Dor stars. These stars are often multi-periodic and display low amplitudes, making them challenging targets to analyse with sparse time series. Aims. We investigate the extent to which the sparse Gaia DR3 data can be used to detect OBAF-type pulsators and discriminate them from other types of variables. We aim to probe the empirical instability strips and compare them with theoretical predictions. The most populated variability class is that of the δ Sct variables. For these stars, we aim to confirm their empirical period-luminosity (PL) relation, and verify the relation between their oscillation amplitude and rotation. Methods. All datasets used in this analysis are part of the Gaia DR3 data release. The photometric time series were used to perform a Fourier analysis, while the global astrophysical parameters necessary for the empirical instability strips were taken from the Gaia DR3 gspphot tables, and the v sin i data were taken from the Gaia DR3 esphs tables. The δ'Sct PL relation was derived using the same photometric parallax method as the one recently used to establish the PL relation for classical Cepheids using Gaia data. Results. We show that for nearby OBAF-type pulsators, the Gaia DR3 data are precise and accurate enough to pinpoint them in the Hertzsprung-Russell (HR) diagram. We find empirical instability strips covering broader regions than theoretically predicted. In particular, our study reveals the presence of fast rotating gravity-mode pulsators outside the strips, as well as the co-existence of rotationally modulated variables inside the strips as reported before in the literature. We derive an extensive period'luminosity relation for δ Sct stars and provide evidence that the relation features different regimes depending on the oscillation period. We demonstrate how stellar rotation attenuates the amplitude of the dominant oscillation mode of δ Sct stars. Conclusions. The Gaia DR3 time-series photometry already allows for the detection of the dominant (non-)radial oscillation mode in about 100 000 intermediate- and high-mass dwarfs across the entire sky. This detection capability will increase as the time series becomes longer, allowing the additional delivery of frequencies and amplitudes of secondary pulsation modes.

Context.Gaia Data Release 3 (DR3) provides a wealth of new data products for the astronomical community to exploit, including astrophysical parameters for half a billion stars. In this work, we demonstrate the high quality of these data products and illustrate their use in different astrophysical contexts. Aims. We produce homogeneous samples of stars with high-quality astrophysical parameters by exploiting Gaia DR3, while focusing on many regimes across the Hertzsprung-Russell (HR) diagram; spectral types OBA, FGKM, and ultracool dwarfs (UCDs). We also focus on specific subsamples of particular interest to the community: solar analogues, carbon stars, and the Gaia spectrophotometric standard stars (SPSS). Methods. We query the astrophysical parameter tables along with other tables in Gaia DR3 to derive the samples of the stars of interest. We validate our results using the Gaia catalogue itself and by comparison with external data. Results. We produced six homogeneous samples of stars with high-quality astrophysical parameters across the HR diagram for the community to exploit. We first focus on three samples that span a large parameter space: young massive disc stars (OBA; about 3 Million), FGKM spectral type stars (about 3 Million), and UCDs (about 20 000). We provide these sources along with additional information (either a flag or complementary parameters) as tables that are made available in the Gaia archive. We also identify 15 740 bone fide carbon stars and 5863 solar analogues, and provide the first homogeneous set of stellar parameters of the SPSS sample. We demonstrate some applications of these samples in different astrophysical contexts. We use a subset of the OBA sample to illustrate its usefulness in analysing the Milky Way rotation curve. We then use the properties of the FGKM stars to analyse known exoplanet systems. We also analyse the ages of some unseen UCD-companions to the FGKM stars. We additionally predict the colours of the Sun in various passbands (Gaia, 2MASS, WISE) using the solar-analogue sample. Conclusions.Gaia DR3 contains a wealth of new high-quality astrophysical parameters for the community to exploit.

We present new neutral mass density and crosswind observations for the CHAMP, GRACE, and GRACE-FO missions, filling the last gaps in our database of accelerometer-derived thermosphere observations. For consistency, we processed the data over the entire lifetime of these missions, noting that the results for GRACE in 2011- 2017 and GRACE-FO are entirely new. All accelerometer data are newly calibrated. We modeled the temperature-induced bias variations for the GRACE accelerometer data to counter the detrimental effects of the accelerometer thermal control deactivation in April 2011. Further, we developed a new radiation pressure model, which uses ray tracing to account for shadowing and multiple reflections and calculates the satellitea's thermal emissions based on the illumination history. The advances in calibration and radiation pressure modeling are essential when the radiation pressure acceleration is significant compared to the aerodynamic one above 450 km altitude during low solar activity, where the GRACE and GRACE-FO satellites spent a considerable fraction of their mission lifetime. The mean of the new density observations changes only marginally, but their standard deviation shows a substantial reduction compared to thermosphere models, up to 15% for GRACE in 2009. The mean and standard deviation of the new GRACE-FO density observations are in good agreement with the GRACE observations. The GRACE and CHAMP crosswind observations agree well with the physics-based TIE-GCM winds, particularly the polar wind patterns. The mean observed crosswind is a few tens of m·s-1 larger than the model one, which we attribute primarily to the crosswind errors being positive by the definition of the retrieval algorithm. The correlation between observed and model crosswind is about 60%, except for GRACE in 2004- 2011 when the signal was too small to retrieve crosswinds reliably.

Context. We present the third data release of the European Space Agency's Gaia mission, Gaia DR3. This release includes a large variety of new data products, notably a much expanded radial velocity survey and a very extensive astrophysical characterisation of Gaia sources. Aims. We outline the content and the properties of Gaia DR3, providing an overview of the main improvements in the data processing in comparison with previous data releases (where applicable) and a brief discussion of the limitations of the data in this release. Methods. The Gaia DR3 catalogue is the outcome of the processing of raw data collected with the Gaia instruments during the first 34 months of the mission by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium. Results. The Gaia DR3 catalogue contains the same source list, celestial positions, proper motions, parallaxes, and broad band photometry in the G, GBP, and GRP pass-bands already present in the Early Third Data Release, Gaia EDR3. Gaia DR3 introduces an impressive wealth of new data products. More than 33 million objects in the ranges GRVS'<'14 and 3100'<'Teff'<'14'500, have new determinations of their mean radial velocities based on data collected by Gaia. We provide GRVS magnitudes for most sources with radial velocities, and a line broadening parameter is listed for a subset of these. Mean Gaia spectra are made available to the community. The Gaia DR3 catalogue includes about 1 million mean spectra from the radial velocity spectrometer, and about 220 million low-resolution blue and red prism photometer BP/RP mean spectra. The results of the analysis of epoch photometry are provided for some 10 million sources across 24 variability types. Gaia DR3 includes astrophysical parameters and source class probabilities for about 470 million and 1500 million sources, respectively, including stars, galaxies, and quasars. Orbital elements and trend parameters are provided for some 800'000 astrometric, spectroscopic and eclipsing binaries. More than 150'000 Solar System objects, including new discoveries, with preliminary orbital solutions and individual epoch observations are part of this release. Reflectance spectra derived from the epoch BP/RP spectral data are published for about 60 000 asteroids. Finally, an additional data set is provided, namely the Gaia Andromeda Photometric Survey, consisting of the photometric time series for all sources located in a 5.5 degree radius field centred on the Andromeda galaxy. Conclusions. This data release represents a major advance with respect to Gaia DR2 and Gaia EDR3 because of the unprecedented quantity, quality, and variety of source astrophysical data. To date this is the largest collection of all-sky spectrophotometry, radial velocities, variables, and astrophysical parameters derived from both low- and high-resolution spectra and includes a spectrophotometric and dynamical survey of SSOs of the highest accuracy. The non-single star content surpasses the existing data by orders of magnitude. The quasar host and galaxy light profile collection is the first such survey that is all sky and space based. The astrophysical information provided in Gaia DR3 will unleash the full potential of Gaia's exquisite astrometric, photometric, and radial velocity surveys.

Context. With the most recent Gaia data release, the number of sources with complete 6D phase space information (position and velocity) has increased to well over 33 million stars, while stellar astrophysical parameters are provided for more than 470 million sources, and more than 11 million variable stars are identified. Aims. Using the astrophysical parameters and variability classifications provided in Gaia DR3, we selected various stellar populations to explore and identify non-axisymmetric features in the disc of the Milky Way in configuration and velocity space. Methods. Using more about 580 000 sources identified as hot OB stars, together with 988 known open clusters younger than 100 Myr, we mapped the spiral structure associated with star formation 4'5 kpc from the Sun. We selected over 2800 Classical Cepheids younger than 200 Myr that show spiral features extending as far as 10 kpc from the Sun in the outer disc. We also identified more than 8.7 million sources on the red giant branch (RGB), of which 5.7 million have line-of-sight velocities. This later sample allows the velocity field of the Milky Way to be mapped as far as 8 kpc from the Sun, including the inner disc. Results. The spiral structure revealed by the young populations is consistent with recent results using Gaia EDR3 astrometry and source lists based on near-infrared photometry, showing the Local (Orion) Arm to be at least 8 kpc long, and an outer arm consistent with what is seen in HI surveys, which seems to be a continuation of the Perseus arm into the third quadrant. The subset of RGB stars with velocities clearly reveals the large-scale kinematic signature of the bar in the inner disc, as well as evidence of streaming motions in the outer disc that might be associated with spiral arms or bar resonances. A local comparison of the velocity field of the OB stars reveals similarities and differences with the RGB sample. Conclusions. This cursory study of Gaia DR3 data shows there is a rich bounty of kinematic information to be explored more deeply, which will undoubtedly lead us to a clearer understanding of the dynamical nature of the non-axisymmetric structures of the Milky Way.