NeuchâtelNeuchâtel (UKˌnɜːʃæˈtɛl, US-ʃɑːˈ-,_ˌnjuːʃəˈ-,_ˌnʊʃɑːˈ-, nøʃɑtɛl; Neuenburg) is a town, a municipality, and the capital of the Swiss canton of Neuchâtel on Lake Neuchâtel. Since the fusion in 2021 of the municipalities of Neuchâtel, Corcelles-Cormondrèche, Peseux, and Valangin, the city has approximately 33,000 inhabitants (80,000 in the metropolitan area). The city is sometimes referred to historically by the German name Neuenburg; both the French and German names mean "New Castle".
HipparcosHipparcos was a scientific satellite of the European Space Agency (ESA), launched in 1989 and operated until 1993. It was the first space experiment devoted to precision astrometry, the accurate measurement of the positions of celestial objects on the sky. This permitted the first high-precision measurements of the intrinsic brightnesses (compared to the less precise apparent brightness), proper motions, and parallaxes of stars, enabling better calculations of their distance and tangential velocity.