We estimate the distance from the Sun to sources in Gaia eDR3 that have
parallaxes. We provide two types of distance estimate, together with
their corresponding asymmetric uncertainties, using Bayesian posterior
density functions that we sample for each source. Our prior is based
on a detailed model of the 3D spatial, colour, and magnitude
distribution of stars in our Galaxy that includes a 3D map of
interstellar extinction.
The first type of distance estimate is purely geometric, in that it only
makes use of the Gaia parallax and parallax uncertainty. This uses a
direction-dependent distance prior derived from our Galaxy model. The
second type of distance estimate is photogeometric: in addition to
parallax it also uses the source's G-band magnitude and BP-RP
colour. This type of estimate uses the geometric prior together with a
direction-dependent and colour-dependent prior on the absolute magnitude
of the star.
Our distance estimate and uncertainties are quantiles, so are invariant
under logarithmic transformations. This means that our median estimate
of the distance can be used to give the median estimate of the distance
modulus, and likewise for the uncertainties.
For applications that cannot be satisfied through TAP, you can download
a full table dump
_.
.. _full table dump: /gedr3dist/q/download/form