The science enabled by a dedicated solar system space telescope
Cindy L. Young, Michael H. Wong, Kunio M. Sayanagi, Shannon Curry, Kandis L. Jessup, Tracy Becker, Amanda Hendrix, Nancy Chanover, Stephanie Milam, Bryan J. Hol… 展开作者
Cindy L. Young, Michael H. Wong, Kunio M. Sayanagi, Shannon Curry, Kandis L. Jessup, Tracy Becker, Amanda Hendrix, Nancy Chanover, Stephanie Milam, Bryan J. Holler, Gregory Holsclaw, Javier Peralta, John Clarke, John Spencer, Michael S. P. Kelley, Janet Luhmann, David MacDonnell, Ronald J. Vervack, Kurt Retherford, Leigh N. Fletcher, Imke de Pater, Faith Vilas, Lori Feaga, Oswald Siegmund, Jim Bell, Gregory Delory, Joseph Pitman, Thomas Greathouse, Edward Wishnow, Nicholas Schneider, Robert Lillis, Joshua Colwell, Lynn Bowman, Rosaly M. C. Lopes, Melissa McGrath, Franck Marchis, Richard Cartwright, Michael J. Poston
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A whitepaper submitted to the Planetary Science Decadal Survey
The National Academy Committee on Astrobiology and Planetary Science (CAPS) made a recommendation to study a large/medium-class dedicated space telescope for planetary science, going beyond the Discovery-class dedicated planetary space telescope endorsed in Visions and Voyages. Such a telescope would observe targets across the entire solar system, engaging a broad spectrum of the science community. It would ensure that the high-resolution, high-sensitivity observations of the solar system in visible and UV wavelengths revolutionized by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) could be extended. A dedicated telescope for solar system science would: (a) transform our understanding of time-dependent phenomena in our solar system that cannot be studied currently under programs to observe and visit new targets and (b) enable a comprehensive survey and spectral characterization of minor bodies across the solar system, which requires a large time allocation not supported by existing facilities. The time-domain phenomena to be explored are critically reliant on high spatial resolution UV-visible observations. This paper presents science themes and key questions that require a long-lasting space telescope dedicated to planetary science that can capture high-quality, consistent data at the required cadences that are free from effects of the terrestrial atmosphere and differences across observing facilities. Such a telescope would have excellent synergy with astrophysical facilities by placing planetary discoveries made by astrophysics assets in temporal context, as well as triggering detailed follow-up observations using larger telescopes. The telescope would support future missions to the Ice Giants, Ocean Worlds, and minor bodies across the solar system by placing the results of such targeted missions in the context of longer records of temporal activities and larger sample populations.
A human-robotic "Moon Village" would offer significant scientific opportunities by providing an infrastructure on the lunar surface. An analogy would be the way in which human outposts in Antarctica facilitate research activities across multiple scientific disciplines on that continent. Scientific fields expected to benefit from a Moon Village will include: planetary science, astronomy, astrobiology, life sciences, and fundamental physics. In addition, a Moon Village will help develop the use of lunar resources, which will yield additional longer-term scientific benefits.
This white paper briefly summarizes stellar science opportunities enabled by ultra-high resolution (sub-100 μ arc-sec) astronomical imaging in the visible (U/V) wavebands. Next generation arrays of Imaging Cherenkov telescopes, to be constructed in the next decade, can provide unprecedented visible band imaging of several thousand bright (m< 6), hot (O/B/A) stars using a modern implementation of Stellar Intensity Interferometry (SII). This white paper describes the astrophysics/astronomy science opportunities that may be uncovered in this new observation space during the next decade.
In the framework of the Europlanet-RI program, a prototype of Virtual Observatory dedicated to Planetary Science was defined. Most of the activity was dedicated to the elaboration of standards to retrieve and visualize data in this field, and to provide light procedures to teams who wish to contribute with on-line data services. The architecture of this VO system and selected solutions are presented here, together with existing demonstrators.
Maximizing the public impact of astronomy projects in the next decade requires NSF-funded centers to support the development of online, mobile-friendly outreach and education activities. EPO teams with astronomy, education, and web development expertise should be in place to build accessible programs at scale and support astronomers doing outreach.
We present here a new robotic telescope called TRAPPIST (TRAnsiting Planets and PlanetesImals Small Telescope). Equipped with a high-quality CCD camera mounted on a 0.6 meter light weight optical tube, TRAPPIST has been installed in April 2010 at the ESO La Silla Observatory (Chile), and is now beginning its scientific program. The science goal of TRAPPIST is the study of planetary systems through two approaches: the detection and study of exoplanets, and the study of comets. We describe here the objectives of the project, the hardware, and we present some of the first results obtained during …
The capability of maintaining two satellites in precise relative position, stable in a celestial coordinate system, would enable major advances in a number of scientific disciplines and with a variety of types of instrumentation. The common requirement is for formation flying of two spacecraft with the direction of their vector separation in inertial coordinates precisely controlled and accurately determined as a function of time. We consider here the scientific goals that could be achieved with such technology and review some of the proposals that have been made for specific missions. Types o…
The advent of increasingly large and complex datasets has fundamentally altered the way that scientists conduct astronomy research. The need to work closely to the data has motivated the creation of online science platforms, which include a suite of software tools and services, therefore going beyond data storage and data access. We present two example applications of Jupyter as a part of astrophysical science platforms for professional researchers and students. First, the Astro Data Lab is developed and operated by NOIRLab with a mission to serve the astronomy community with now over 1500 reg…
We advocate for a mission concept study for a space telescope dedicated to solar system science in Earth orbit. Such a study was recommended by the Committee on Astrobiology and Planetary Science (CAPS) report "Getting Ready for the Next Planetary Science Decadal Survey." The Mid-Decadal Review also recommended NASA to assess the role and value of space telescopes for planetary science. The need for high-resolution, UV-Visible capabilities is especially acute for planetary science with the impending end of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST); however, NASA has not funded a planetary telescope con…
In the Earth's magnetosphere, there are fewer than a dozen dedicated probes beyond low-Earth orbit making in-situ observations at any given time. As a result, we poorly understand its global structure and evolution, the mechanisms of its main activity processes, magnetic storms, and substorms. New Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods, including machine learning, data mining, and data assimilation, as well as new AI-enabled missions will need to be developed to meet this Sparse Data challenge.
Feature Extraction and Classification from Planetary Science Datasets enabled by Machine Learning
Planetary Systems Laboratory（行星系统实验室）；University of Virginia（弗吉尼亚大学）；School of Information（信息学院）；NASA Goddard Space Flight Center（美国国家航空航天局戈达德太空飞行中心）；University of California, Berkeley（加州大学伯克利分校）；Yale University（耶鲁大学）；Baylor University（贝勒大学）；Nantes Université（南特大学）；Timothy Dwight College（蒂莫西·德怀特学院）；University of Maryland（马里兰大学）；NASA Langley Research Center（美国国家航空航天局兰利研究中心）；Business Intelligence Division（商业智能部门）；Inntopia（因托皮亚公司）；Department of Geology（地质系）；Center Operations Directorate（中心运营局）；SAIC | East-2（科学应用国际公司东部2区）
With its Planetary Space Weather Service (PSWS), the Europlanet-H2020 Research Insfrastructure (EPN2020RI) project is proposing a compelling set of databases and tools to that provides Space Weather forecasting throughout the Solar System. We present here the selected event transfer system (VOEvent). We describe the user requirements, develop the way to implement event alerts, and chain those to the 1) planetary event and 2) planetary space weather predictions. The service of alerts is developed with the objective to facilitate discovery or prediction announcements within the PSWS user communi…
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will revolutionize our understanding of exoplanets with transit spectroscopy of a wide range of mature planets close to their host stars ($<$2 AU) and with coronagraphic imaging and spectroscopy of young objects located further out ($>$10 AU). The census of exoplanets has revealed an enormous variety of planets orbiting stars of all ages and spectral types. With TESS adding to this census with its all-sky survey of the closest, brightest stars, the challenge of the coming decade will be to move from demography to physical characterization. This white paper…
We propose a sociohistorical framework for better understanding the evolution in the use of telescopes. We define two regimes of use : a general-purpose (or survey) one, where the telescope governs research, and a dedicated one, in which the telescope is tailored to a specific project which includes a network of other tools. This conceptual framework is first applied to the history of the 80-cm telescope of Toulouse Observatory, which is initially anchored in a general-purpose regime linked to astrometry. After a transition in the 1930s, it is integrated in a dedicated regime centered on astro…
An international consortium is presently constructing a beamformer for the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile that will be available as a facility instrument. The beamformer will aggregate the entire collecting area of the array into a single, very large aperture. The extraordinary sensitivity of phased ALMA, combined with the extremely fine angular resolution available on baselines to the Northern Hemisphere, will enable transformational new very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations in Bands 6 and 7 (1.3 and 0.8 mm) and provide substantial improvements to…
Advances in space weather science and small satellite (SmallSat) technology have proceeded in parallel over the past two decades, but better communication and coordination is needed among the respective worldwide communities contributing to this rapid progress. We identify six areas where improved international coordination is especially desirable, including: (1) orbital debris mitigation; (2) spectrum management; (3) export control regulations; (4) access to timely and low-cost launch opportunities; (5) inclusive data policies; and (6) education. We argue the need for internationally coordina…
The increasing number of Very High Energy (VHE) sources discovered by the current generation of Cherenkov telescopes made particularly relevant the creation of a dedicated source catalogs as well as the cross-correlation of VHE and lower energy bands data in a multi-wavelength framework. The "TeGeV Catalog" hosted at the ASI Science Data Center (ASDC) is a catalog of VHE sources detected by ground-based Cherenkov detectors. The TeGeVcat collects all the relevant information publicly available about the observed GeV/TeV sources. The catalog contains also information about public light curves wh…
The focus of this report is on the opportunities enabled by the combination of LSST, Euclid and WFIRST, the optical surveys that will be an essential part of the next decade's astronomy. The sum of these surveys has the potential to be significantly greater than the contributions of the individual parts. As is detailed in this report, the combination of these surveys should give us multi-wavelength high-resolution images of galaxies and broadband data covering much of the stellar energy spectrum. These stellar and galactic data have the potential of yielding new insights into topics ranging fr…
The 1.0 meter f/4 fast-slew Zadko telescope is located in Western Australia, approximately seventy kilometers north of Perth at Yeal in the Shire of Gingin in a dedicated "low-luminosity" area. It is the only meter class optical research facility at this southern latitude between the east coast of Australia and South Africa and can rapidly image optical transients at a longitude not monitored by other similar facilities. We review here the main results achieved during the last decade and give some points toward the goals set for future years. Finally we discuss the modifications and improvemen…
AstroSat is India's first dedicated multi-wavelength space observatory launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on 28 September 2015. After launch, the AstroSat Science Support Cell (ASSC) was set up as a joint venture of ISRO and the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) with the primary purpose of facilitating the use of AstroSat, both for making observing proposals and for utilising archival data. The ASSC organises meetings, workshops and webinars to train users in these activities, runs a help desk to address user queries, provides utility tools a…
ESA's Gaia space astrometry mission is performing an all-sky survey of stellar objects. At the beginning of the nominal mission in July 2014, an operation scheme was adopted that enabled Gaia to routinely acquire observations of all stars brighter than the original limit of G~6, i.e. the naked-eye stars. Here, we describe the current status and extent of those observations and their on-ground processing. We present an overview of the data products generated for G<6 stars and the potential scientific applications. Finally, we discuss how the Gaia survey could be enhanced by further exploiting t…
K-DRIFT Science Theme: Galaxies in the Faint Universe
Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute（韩国天文与空间科学研究所）；Department of Astronomy and Atmospheric Sciences, Kyungpook National University（庆北大学天文与大气科学学院）；Department of Astronomy and Space Science, University of Science and Technology（科学技术大学天文与空间科学系）；Astronomy Program, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University（首尔大学物理天文学系天文学项目）；SNU Astronomy Research Center, Seoul National University（首尔大学天文研究中心）；Natural Science Research Institute, University of Seoul（首尔大学自然科学研究院）；Department of Astronomy and Yonsei University Observatory, Yonsei University（延世大学天文系及延世大学天文台）；Quantum Universe Center, Korea Institute for Advanced Study（韩国高等科学研究院量子宇宙中心）
