UNIDIA
Engineering and Instrumental Developments Unit for Astrophysics
From instrumental design to the exploitation of observables
Flash News
A new era begins for Gaia
After 3827 days spent observing nearly two billion objects, Gaia is about to enter a new era: January 15, 2025 will mark the end of scientific observations. These observations began on July 25, 2014, some 7 months after the mission’s launch, and have already led to the publication of several catalogs, see Gaia in some dates and, in just a few years, already over 13,000 publications detailing the mission’s scientific results! French laboratories, along with CNES, are making a significant contribution to this success, with their major responsibilities in data processing and exploitation.
UNIDIA is a scientific and technical support service of the Observatoire de Paris-PSL and the CNRS. Its shared nature enables it to work on the biggest instrumental projects of the Paris Observatory laboratories, designed to prepare for the astrophysics of the future.
We are organized into a quality/product assurance department and three technical divisions. The first is dedicated to all mechanical stages, from design to assembly and testing of parts manufactured in our workshop. The second covers all areas of instrument development, and the third is dedicated to software engineering.
These divisions design innovative hardware and software solutions for astrophysical instrumentation across the entire electromagnetic spectrum (from radio to very high energies). We have the technical expertise to collect light, transport it via thousands of optical fibers and inject it into spectrographic slits. With our scientific, statistical and IT expertise, we also master the entire chain of collecting and analyzing massive data, within the framework of DRS (Data Reduction Software), also known as "pipelines".
Thanks to our cutting-edge know-how, our instruments are capable of observing thousands of objects every night with unrivalled precision, providing scientists with a wealth of accurate information for the first time. A case in point is the Gaia instrument, for which one of our technical divisions plays a major role, being responsible for processing spectroscopic data and multiple stars.
These instrumental and software performances are revolutionizing the way we see the Universe as a whole, and helping to answer questions that have remained unanswered for decades, such as the origin of dark matter or the structure of our Galaxy.
As part of our training activities, we contribute to the teaching provided in the Master’s courses at the Observatoire de Paris-PSL, and every year we welcome trainees and apprentices of all levels to help them discover our exciting professions. UNIDIA is at the cutting edge of instrumental and computing know-how dedicated to astrophysics, and offers many opportunities for those who wish to contribute to the future of astrophysics.
