Galactic Archaeology with the Gaia data

The Milky Way is the one disk galaxy that we can observe in great detail and study individual stars that span a wide range of ages and metallicities. The older stars that we observe are stellar fossils, containing information from the epoch of Galaxy formation. Studies of their chemical and kinematic properties are known as ''Galactic Archaeology''. The ESA's Gaia mission (launched in Dec. 2013) is set to revolutionise Galactic Archaeology over the coming decade, building upon ongoing ground-based projects. Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL) has major roles both in the mission development of Gaia and in the data processing consortium for the spectroscopy aspect. The project will exploit the Gaia data combined with the various ground-based spectroscopic survey data, and unveil the mass distribution (both stellar and dark matter) of the Milky Way and the formation history of the Milky Way from these observational data