Rationale

The Milky Way Unravelled by Gaia

The Gaia Research for European Astronomy Training (GREAT) network is a pan European science driven research infrastructure, which is facilitating, through focused interaction on a European scale, the fullest exploitation of the ESA Gaia 'cornerstone' astronomy mission. After the successful launch of the Gaia satellite (19 December 2013) and the recent completion of its complex commissioning phase, Gaia commenced its five-year nominal mission in summer 2014. The astronomy community will soon be able to use the rich datasets from Gaia in generating profound advances in the study of the Cosmos.

The GREAT ITN (Initial Training Network – see http://www.great-itn.eu) is supported by the EC through its FP7 Marie Curie programme, and is devoted to the training of the next generation of ’Gaia’ scientists, through their participation in a range of key Gaia research programmes at research centres across Europe.

The GREAT-ITN final conference will be held 1-5 December 2014. This open conference will provide the opportunity for the highlights of the research activities carried out during last years to be presented. These topics range from the structure and formation of the Milky Way as a whole, to the study of asteroids in our own Solar System. The conference will also include a range of topical presentations concerning the status of Gaia, and new results from the earliest mission data (the ‘Gaia photometric alerts’). In addition the conference will cover topics such as science resulting from a range of ground-based surveys aiming to leverage Gaia, e.g. new insights from the large Gaia-ESO survey, together with presentations from other initiatives in the USA, China, and elsewhere.

Researchers active in any topic, already involved with the GREAT network, or with interests in Gaia and the science it will enable, are welcome to join the conference in December, and are encouraged to contribute to the meeting via either contributed talks or posters.

We look forward to welcoming you to Barcelona, for what promises to be the first of many conferences benefitting from the wealth of Gaia data.

Nicholas Walton and Francesca Figueras (on behalf of the SOC).