A population of free-floating planets is known from gravitational microlensing surveys. None have a directly measured mass, owing to a degeneracy with the distance, but the population statistics indicate that many are less massive than Jupiter. We report a microlensing event-KMT-2024-BLG-0792/OGLE-2024-BLG-0516, which was observed from both ground- and space-based telescopes-that breaks the mass-distance degeneracy. The event was caused by an object with 0.219-0.046+0.075 Jupiter masses that is either gravitationally unbound or on a very wide orbit. Through comparison with the statistical properties of other observed microlensing events and predictions from simulations, we infer that this object likely formed in a protoplanetary disk (like a planet), not in isolation (like a brown dwarf). Dynamical processes then ejected it from its birthplace, producing a free-floating object.

The European Space Agency has selected PLATO (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars) for its M3 launch which is scheduled for 2026. With its extremely large field of view, PLATO is designed to obtain photometric measurements over an extended period for bright stars in order to detect and characterise (primarily) rocky planets in the habitable zones of solar type stars. The PLATO measurements will have sufficient sensitivity to determine the mass, radius and age of the host stars with unprecedented accuracy. The PLATO planet database will provide the first large-scale catalogue of accurately and homogeneously characterised small planets at intermediate orbital periods, which will can be used to severely constraint planet formation theories. This would facilitate large scale comparative exo-planetology. In addition the bright PLATO host stars will be ideal targets for atmospheric study with next generation facilities such as the ELT. The PLATO sensitivity will be sufficient to detect pulsations from stars across the HR diagram allowing a deep understanding of stellar structure and evolution to be developed using parameters determined from asteroseismology.

The discovery of gravitational wave (GW) events and the detection of electromagnetic counterparts from GW170817 has started the era of multimessenger GW astronomy.The field has been developing rapidly and in this paper,we discuss the preparation for detecting these events with the ESA Gaia satellite,during the 4th observing run of the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) collaboration that has started on May 24,2023. Gaia is contributing to the search for GW counterparts by a new transient detection pipeline called GaiaX. In GaiaX, a new source appearing in the field of view of only one of the two telescopes on-board Gaia is sufficient to send out an alert on the possible detection of a new transient. Ahead of O4, an experiment was conducted over a period of about two months. During the two weeks around New Moon in this period of time, the MeerLICHT (ML) telescope located in South Africa tried (weather permitting) to observe the same region of the sky as Gaia within 10 minutes. Any GaiaX detected transient was published publicly. ML and Gaia have similar limiting magnitudes for typical seeing conditions at ML. At the end of the experiment, we had 11861 GaiaX candidate transients and 15806 ML candidate transients, which we further analysed and the results of which are presented in this paper. Finally, we discuss the possibility and capabilities of Gaia contributing to the search for electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational wave events during O4 through the GaiaX detection and alert procedure.

Gaia Photometric Science Alerts (GPSA) publishes Gaia G magnitudes and Blue Photometer (BP) and Red Photometer (RP) low-resolution epoch spectra of transient events. 27 high-resolution spectra from Gaia's Radial Velocity Spectrometer (RVS) of 12 GPSAs have also been published. These 27 RVS epoch spectra are presented next to their corresponding BP and RP epoch spectra in a single place for the first time. We also present one new RVS spectrum of a 13th GPSA that could not be published by the GPSA system. Of the 13 GPSA with RVS spectra, five are photometrically classified as unknown, five as supernovae (three as SN Ia, one as SN II, one as SN IIP), one as a cataclysmic variable, one as a binary microlensing event and one as a young stellar object. The five GPSAs classified as unknown are potential scientific opportunities, while all of them are a preview of the epoch RVS spectra that will be published in Gaia's fourth data release.

The ESA Gaia satellite scans the whole sky with a temporal sampling ranging from seconds and hours to months. Each time a source passes within the Gaia field of view, it moves over 10 CCDs in 45 s and a lightcurve with 4.5 s sampling (the crossing time per CCD) is registered. Given that the 4.5 s sampling represents a virtually unexplored parameter space in optical time domain astronomy, this data set potentially provides a unique opportunity to open up the fast transient sky. We present a method to start mining the wealth of information in the per CCD Gaia data. We perform extensive data filtering to eliminate known on-board and data processing artefacts, and present a statistical method to identify sources that show transient brightness variations on ~2 hours timescales. We illustrate that by using the Gaia photometric CCD measurements, we can detect transient brightness variations down to an amplitude of 0.3 mag on timescales ranging from 15 seconds to several hours. We search an area of ~23.5 square degrees on the sky, and find four strong candidate fast transients. Two candidates are tentatively classified as flares on M-dwarf stars, while one is probably a flare on a giant star and one potentially a flare on a solar type star. These classifications are based on archival data and the timescales involved. We argue that the method presented here can be added to the existing Gaia Science Alerts infrastructure for the near real-time public dissemination of fast transient events.

view Abstract Citations References Co-Reads Similar Papers Volume Content Graphics Metrics Export Citation NASA/ADS Registry Interfaces Version 1.1 Dower, Theresa ; Demleitner, Markus ; Benson, Kevin ; Plante, Ray ; Auden, Elizabeth ; Graham, Matthew ; Greene, Gretchen ; Hill, Martin ; Linde, Tony ; Morris, Dave ; O`Mullane, Wil ; Rixon, Guy ; Stébé, Aurélien ; Andrews, Kona Abstract The VO Registry provides a mechanism with which VO applications can discover and select resources that are relevant for a particular scientific problem. This specification defines the operation of this system. It is based on a general, distributed model composed of searchable and publishing registries, as introduced at the beginning of this document. The main body of the specification has three components: (a) an interface for harvesting publishing registries, which builds upon the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting. (b) A VOResource extension for registering registry services and description of a central list of said IVOA registry services. (c) A discussion of the Registry of Registries as the root component of data discovery in the VO. Publication: IVOA Recommendation 23 July 2018 Pub Date: July 2018 DOI: 10.5479/ADS/bib/2018ivoa.spec.0723D Bibcode: 2018ivoa.spec.0723D full text sources Publisher |

view Abstract Citations (1) References Co-Reads Similar Papers Volume Content Graphics Metrics Export Citation NASA/ADS VOSpace Version 2.1 Graham, Matthew ; Major, Brian ; Morris, Dave ; Rixon, Guy ; Dowler, Pat ; Schaaff, André ; Tody, Doug Abstract VOSpace is the IVOA interface to distributed storage. This specification presents the second RESTful version of the interface. It specifies how VO agents and applications can use network attached data stores to persist and exchange data in a standard way. Publication: IVOA Recommendation 21 June 2018 Pub Date: June 2018 DOI: 10.5479/ADS/bib/2018ivoa.spec.0621G Bibcode: 2018ivoa.spec.0621G full text sources Publisher |

Approved client-server authentication mechanisms are described for the IVOA single-sign-on profile: No Authentication; HTTP Basic Authentication; TLS with passwords; TLS with client certificates; Cookies; Open Authentication; Security Assertion Markup Language; OpenID. Normative rules are given for the implementation of these mechanisms, mainly by reference to pre-existing standards. The Authorization mechanisms are out of the scope of this document.

VOSpace is the IVOA interface to distributed storage. This specification presents the first RESTful version of the interface, which is functionally equivalent to the SOAP-based VOSpace 1.1 specification. Note that all prior VOSpace clients will not work with this new version of the interface.

This document describes an XML encoding standard for metadata about services implementing the table access protocol TAP [TAP], referred to as TAPRegExt. Instance documents are part of the service's registry record or can be obtained from the service itself. They deliver information to both humans and software on the languages, output formats, and upload methods supported by the service, as well as data models implemented by the exposed tables, optional language features, and certain limits enforced by the service.

This document describes an XML encoding standard for metadata about IVOA standards themselves, referred to as StandardsRegExt. It is intended to allow for the discovery of a standard via an IVOA identifier that refers to the standard. It also allows one to define concepts that are defined by the standard which can themselves be referred to via an IVOA identifier (augmented with a URL fragment identifier). Finally, it can also provide a machine interpretable description of a standard service interface. We describe the general model for the schema and explain its intended use by interoperable registries for discovering resources.

VOSpace is the IVOA interface to distributed storage. This specification presents the first RESTful version of the interface, which is functionally equivalent to the SOAP-based VOSpace 1.1 specification. Note that all prior VOSpace clients will not work with this new version of the interface.

This document describes the list of controlled terms used to build the Unified Content Descriptors, Version 1+ (UCD1+). The document describing the UCD1+ can be found at the URL: http://www.ivoa.net/Documents/latest/UCD.html. This document reviews the structure of the UCD1+ and presents the current vocabulary.

This document describes the minimum interface that a (SOAP- or REST-based) web service requires to participate in the IVOA. Note that this is not required of standard VO services developed prior to this specification, although uptake is strongly encouraged on any subsequent revision. All new standard VO services, however, must feature a VOSI-compliant interface. This document has been produced by the Grid and Web Services Working Group. It has been reviewed by IVOA Members and other interested parties, and has been endorsed by the IVOA Executive Committee as an IVOA Recommendation. It is a stable document and may be used as reference material or cited as a normative reference from another document. IVOA's role in making the Recommendation is to draw attention to the specification and to promote its widespread deployment. This enhances the functionality and interoperability inside the Astronomical Community.

Registries provide a mechanism with which VO applications can discover and select resources–e.g. data and services–that are relevant for a particular scientific problem. This specification defines the interfaces that support interactions between applications and registries as well as between the registries themselves. It is based on a general, distributed model composed of so-called searchable and publishing registries. The specification has two main components: an interface for searching and an interface for harvesting. All interfaces are defined by a standard Web Service Description Language (WSDL) document; however, harvesting is also supported through the existing Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting, defined as an HTTP REST interface. Finally, this specification details the metadata used to describe registries themselves as resources using an extension of the VOResource metadata schema.

VOSpace is the IVOA interface to distributed storage. This version extends the existing VOSpace 1.0 (SOAP-based) specification to support containers, links between individual VOSpace instances, third party APIs, and a find mechanism. Note, however, that VOSpace-1.0 compatible clients will not work with this new version of the interface.

Approved client-server authentication mechanisms are described for the IVOA single-sign-on profile: digital signatures (for SOAP services); TLS with passwords (for user sign-on points); TLS with client certificates (for everything else). Normative rules are given for the implementation of these mechanisms, mainly by reference to pre-existing standards.

The Virtual Atomic and Molecular Data Center (VAMDC) is a European Union funded collaboration between groups involved in the generation, evaluation, and use of atomic and molecular data. VAMDC aims to build a secure, documented, flexible and interoperable e-science environment-based interface to existing atomic and molecular data. The project will cover establishing the core consortium, the development and deployment of the infrastructure and the development of interfaces to the existing atomic and molecular databases. This paper describes the organization, its objectives and introduces the VAMDC level one service release.