Computational challenges of 21st century Global Astrometry

Abstract

Major advancements in space science and detector technology brought about a revolution in global astrometry, the science of measuring distances and motions of stars in the Milky Way and in the local universe. From the first ESA astrometric mission HIPPARCOS of the early 80s to the current Gaia mission, the data volume and computational complexity of the full reduction process has increased by several orders of magnitude, requiring high-performance computing and data throughput. We review the principles and computational complexity of general global astrometric models that lead to the statistical treatment of an extra-large, highly non-linear estimation problem. Some numerical aspects of inspecting Gaia's proper motions to find cosmological signals at all scales are also addressed.