The GaiaNIR mission and the engagement of the Spanish Community

Session

IR Astrometry: big science questions (III). Chair: Josep Manel Carrasco

29 Jan 2026, 17:00

Agencia Espacial Española (AEE) headquarters in Sevilla

8. Present with Gaia and Future with GaiaNir in the bodies of the solar system

Rene Duffard (Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía - CSIC), Dr Alvaro Alvarez-Candal (IAA-CSIC)

29/01/2026, 17:00

The Gaia mission has revolutionized our understanding of the Solar System by providing unprecedented astrometric and photometric data for small bodies, despite not being originally designed for this purpose. To date, Gaia has delivered high-precision astrometry for over 150,000 asteroids and photometric measurements for tens of thousands of objects, along with reflectance spectra for...

47. GaiaNIR Photometry and the Census of Unresolved Binaries

Sagar Malhotra (IEEC-ICCUB)

29/01/2026, 17:15

Precise Gaia astrometry and photometry have enabled large-scale studies of unresolved binaries across the Milky Way. However, most existing (spectro-)photometric techniques based solely on these data remain primarily sensitive to high mass-ratio systems (q ≳ 0.6). In a recent pathfinder study we demonstrated that incorporating near- and mid-infrared photometry—such as from 2MASS and...

56. Massive young clusters in the Milky Way

Ignacio Negueruela (Universidad de Alicante)

29/01/2026, 17:30

Massive young clusters, with stellar populations approaching or exceeding ten thousand solar masses, are formidable laboratories to study stellar properties and evolution. On the one hand, they contain so many stars of any given type that they permit statistically robust tests of stellar properties, with samples of the same age and composition. On the other, their upper main sequences are...

42. GaiaNIR: Transforming our view of star and planet formation

Núria Miret Roig (Universitat de Barcelona)

29/01/2026, 17:45

Gaia has transformed our view of the Milky Way, and a near-infrared successor, GaiaNIR, promises an equally profound revolution in our understanding of how stars and planets form. GaiaNIR will provide, for the first time, homogeneous and precise all-sky astrometry down to the lowest-mass end of the initial mass function, crucial for identifying brown dwarfs and free-floating planets members of...

32. Cosmological Simulations for GaiaNIR Studies of the Local Group

Isabel Santos-Santos

29/01/2026, 18:00

The upcoming GaiaNIR mission will provide unprecedented proper motion measurements for stars across the Local Group, extending Gaia’s capabilities into the near-infrared and enabling the inclusion of stars previously obscured by dust. This will improve orbit determinations for the Milky Way’s satellite dwarf galaxies, and neighboring galaxies such as M31 and M33. In this context, cosmological...

6. Studying the Milky Way stellar halo and its stellar stream with Gaia-NIR

Guillaume Thomas (IAC/ULL)

29/01/2026, 18:15

I will present how the improvement in astrometry provided by Gaia-NIR for stars in the outermost component of our Galaxy, the stellar halo, will allow us to better constrain the formation history of the Milky Way and the distribution of dark matter. In recent years, several studies have shown that the halo is out of equilibrium and strongly perturbed, in particular due to the infall of the...

41. Massive young clusters in the Milky Way

Ignacio Negueruela (Universidad de Alicante)