The Hipparcos Astrometry Mission
DOI: 10.1063/1.882271
Much of what we know about the universe has come from astrometry, the precise measurement of star positions. Astrometry has been an important scientific tool for more than two millenia. The name of the European Space Agency’s High Precision Parallax Collecting Satellite—Hipparcos for short—honors the great prechristian astrometer Hipparchus of Nicea. Tycho Brahe, the last great naked‐eye astrometer, died just nine years before Galileo first turned his telescope to the heavens.
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More about the Authors
Michael Perryman. European Space Agency's Research and Technology Center, Noordwijk, The Netherlands.
