Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Gaia, White Dwarfs, And The Age Of The Galaxy, Ted Von Hippel, E.J. Jeffery, David Van Dyk, D.C. Stenning, E. Robinson, W.H. Jefferys

Publications

The Milky Way is composed of four major stellar populations: the thin disk, thick disk, bulge, and halo. At present, we do not know the age of any of these populations to better than one or two billion years. This lack of knowledge keeps us from answering fundamental questions about the Galaxy: When did the thin disk, thick disk, and halo form? Did they form over an extended period, and if so, how long? Was star formation continuous across these populations or instead occur in distinct episodes? The Gaia satellite is providing precise trigonometric parallaxes for a plethora of white …