van Leeuwen, F. ; de Bruijne, J. ; Babusiaux, C. ; Castañeda, J. ; Hobbs, D. ; Busso, G. ; Sartoretti, P. ; Utrilla, E. ; Luri, X. ; Marrese, P. M. ; Mora, A. ; Fabricius, C. ; González-Núñez, J. ; Hambly, N. ; Altavilla, G. ; Altmann, M. ; Antoja, T. ; Arenou, F. ; Bakker, J. ; Balbinot, E. ; Barache, C. ; Bastian, U. ; Bauchet, N. ; Bellazzini, M. ; Biermann, M. ; Blomme, R. ; Bombrun, A. ; Brown, A. ; Busonero, D. ; Butkevich, A. ; Cacciari, C. ; Carrasco, J. M. ; Cheek, N. ; Clotet, M. ; Creevey, O. ; Crowley, C. ; Cánovas, H. ; David, M. ; Davidson, M. ; De Angeli, F. ; Diakité, S. ; Drimmel, R. ; Duran, J. ; Evans, D. W. ; Fabrizio, M. ; Fernández-Hernández, J. ; Figueras, F. ; Findeisen, K. ; Garcia-Gutierrez, A. ; Gracia-Abril, G. ; Guerra, R. ; Gutiérrez-Sánchez, R. ; Helmi, A. ; Henar Sarmiento, M. ; Hernandez, J. ; Hutton, A. ; Jordi, C. ; Khanna, S. ; Klioner, S. ; Lammers, U. ; Leclerc, N. ; Lindegren, L. ; Löffler, W. ; Marinoni, S. ; Martín-Fleitas, J. ; Masana, E. ; Masip Vela, A. ; Masip, A. ; Messineo, R. ; Michalik, D. ; Mignard, F. ; Montegriffo, P. ; Muraveva, T. ; Nienartowicz, K. ; Pancino, E. ; Panem, C. ; Portell, J. ; Racero, E. ; Rainer, M. ; Ramos, P. ; Reylé, C. ; Ríos Diaz, C. ; Riva, A. ; Robin, A. ; Robin, A. ; Roegiers, T. ; Romero-Gómez, M. ; Rowell, N. ; Rybizki, J. ; Salgado, J. ; Sanna, N. ; Seabroke, G. ; Segovia, J. C. ; Siddiqui, H. ; Smart, R. ; Stephenson, C. ; Teyssier, D. ; Torra, F. ; Turon, C. ; Valero, J. ; Vallenari, A. ; van Leeuwen, M. ; Weiler, M.

published in Gaia EDR3 documentation (2021)

Abstract: The early installment of the third Gaia data release, Gaia EDR3, encompasses astrometry and photometry, complemented with radial velocities copied from Gaia DR2 after removal of a small number of spurious entries. The data collected between 25 July 2014 and 28 May 2017 - during the first 34 months of the nominal, five-year mission - have been processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC), resulting into this third data release. A summary of the release properties is provided in Gaia Collaboration et al. (2020a). The overall scientific validation of the data is described in Fabricius et al. (2020). These papers are considered 'must-read' material for any user of Gaia EDR3 data. Background information on the Gaia mission and the spacecraft can be found in Gaia Collaboration et al. (2016b), with a more detailed presentation of the Radial Velocity Spectrometer (RVS) in Cropper et al. (2018). In addition, Gaia EDR3 is accompanied by dedicated papers, all part of a Special Issue of A&A, that describe the processing and validation of the various data products: Lindegren et al. (2020) for the Gaia EDR3 astrometry, Riello et al. (2020) for the Gaia EDR3 photometry, Seabroke et al. (2020) for the radial velocities published in Gaia EDR3, and Klioner et al. (2020) for the celestial reference frame. Four more papers present a glimpse of the scientific value, richness, and potential of the data in the areas of the kinematics of the Milky Way towards the Galactic anti-centre (Gaia Collaboration et al. 2021), the properties of the complete sample of nearby stars (Gaia Collaboration et al. 2020d, the Gaia Catalogue of Nearby Stars), the structure and properties of the Magellanic Clouds (Gaia Collaboration et al. 2020c), and the acceleration of the solar-system barycentre with respect to distant quasars (Gaia Collaboration et al. 2020b). In addition to the set of references mentioned above, this documentation provides a detailed, complete overview of the processing and validation of the Gaia EDR3 data.

Links: link
Funding: Gaia-Prodex/Gaia-Prodex/Gaia-Prodex