BERTHIER , Jerôme

The Gaia satellite, an ESA cornerstone mission to be launched at the end of the year 2011, will observe a large number of celestial bodies including also small bodies of the solar system. Albeit spread from the inner to the outer regions of the solar system, these are mainly near-Earth objects and main-belt asteroids. All objects brighter than...

We present in the following some capabilities of the Gaia mission for performing local test of General Relativity (GR) based on the astrometry of asteroids. This ESA cornerstone mission, to be launched in Spring 2012, will observe---in addition to the stars and QSOs---a large number of small solar system bodies with unprecedented photometric...

This poster presents the context of the astronomical Virtual Observatory (VO), an ambitious international proposal to provide uniform, convenient access to disparate, geographically dispersed archives of astronomical data from software which runs on the computer on the astronomer's desktop. The VO could be of interest for the geodetic...

Since their formation, asteroids since their formation have experienced little physical, geological or thermal evolution. Like comets they are thought to be among the most pristine remnants of the early solar system. One physical process, however, has played a major role since the ancient times: collisions. Dynamical families were produced by...

This poster presents the context of the astronomical Virtual Observatory (VO), an ambitious international proposal to provide uniform, convenient access to disparate, geographically dispersed archives of astronomical data from software which runs on the computer on the astronomer's desktop. The VO could be of interest for the geodetic...

We exploit the solar transits of Venus in 2004 and 2012, to derive useful constraints on the mesosphere of the planet by the observation of the so-called "aureole" resulting from direct sunlight refraction. In 2012 we organized an extensive campaign, involving observations through both space- and ground- based telescopes. A specific design...

The Institut de mecanique celeste et de calcul des ephemerides (IMCCE, Paris Observatory) is willing to provide information on Solar System objects to the Astronomical Virtual Observatory. The first step is the interconnection of IMCCE ephemerides servers with the Vizier and Aladin tools of the Centre de donnees astronomiques de Strasbourg...

Binary or multiple asteroids are important bodies that provide insight into the physical properties of asteroids in general. The knowledge of the components orbit in a binary provides the total mass with high accuracy and generally permits a rough bulk-density estimate [1,2]. We have observed 10 selected binary or multiple asteroids (22...

The ESA astrometric mission Gaia has been launched in December 2013. It is currently in its commissioning phase, with the first scientific data expected to be downloaded in June 2014. Gaia has the capability to observe, in addition to about one billion of stars, a large number of solar system objects (SSO) [1]. The satellite and telescope will...

On 5-6 June 2012, Venus will be transiting the Sun for the last time in this century. This unique opportunity, besides offering the opportunity of investigating the mesosphere of the planet, also provides a significant nearby analog of exoplanet transits. Several studies using the transmission spectroscopy technique have provided significant...

After its successful launch in December 2013, and commissioning period, ESA's astrometric space mission Gaia has now started its scientific operations. In addition to the 3D census of our Milky Way with high precision parallax, proper motion, and other parameters derived for a billion of stars, Gaia will also provide a scientific harvest for...

The Ground Based Optical Tracking group (GBOT) consists of about ten scientists involved in the Gaia mission by ESA. Its main task is the optical tracking of the Gaia satellite itself [1]. This novel tracking method in addition to radiometric standard ones is necessary to ensure that the Gaia mission goal in terms of astrometric precision level...

During the Venus transit in 2004 several observers collected data useful to the characterization of the mesosphere of the planet, by observing the solar light refracted at the corresponding altitude range. The "aureole" thus formed, is observable during the ingress and egress phases of the transit, when Venus is crossing the solar limb. For the...