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The Gaia and Solar System Objects

2012 
The observers in a ground-based network for Gaia support need to be aware of the properties of Gaia data for being able to exploit the information which is provided by the data processing chain. The case of Solar System objects is introduced, along with the potential of scientific exploitation. It is expected that Gaia will mainly contribute in the domain of physical and dynamical properties of asteroids and planetary satellites, whose largest majority will already be known. Nevertheless, a small fraction of discoveries can be expected. New asteroids observed by Gaia can be relevant under several aspects, namely for the completion of the inventory of the Main Belt population and for the identification of new Earth-crossers at small solar elongation. The region of the "Inner-Earth" objects is particularly interesting as it has been poorly sampled by surveys up to now. Also, the possibility of observing Earth and Mars trojans will be discussed. Given the scanning mode of operation, Gaia won't be able to follow individual objects, and the faintest ones close to its investigation limits (V=20) could have very poor sampling of their orbits. For this reason, a ground-based follow up is mandatory.
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