Related papers: High-Impact Astronomical Observatories
The rapid growth of imaging and spectroscopic surveys has intensified the need for efficient tools that support visual inspection, a practice that remains essential for tasks such as classification, catalog refinement, and validation of…
Extremely large telescopes (ELTs) are considered worldwide to be one of the highest priorities in ground-based astronomy. The European Southern Observatory (ESO) is developing an ELT that will have a 39 m main mirror and will be the largest…
Data volumes from multiple sky surveys have grown from gigabytes into terabytes during the past decade, and will grow from terabytes into tens (or hundreds) of petabytes in the next decade. This exponential growth of new data both enables…
GW170817 with its coincident optical counterpart has led to a first "standard siren" measurement of the Hubble constant independent of the cosmological distance ladder. The Schutz "statistical" method, which is expected to work in the…
The approach of Observational Astronomy is mainly aimed at the construction of larger aperture telescopes, more sensitive detectors and broader wavelength coverage. Certainly fruitful, this approach turns out to be not completely fulfilling…
We have counted the number of references in 1179 papers published in Astronomy and Astrophysics over twenty years. The number of references has increased by 60% between 1975 and 1995, reflecting the increase (by the same amount) of the…
I will review recent advances in the field of blazars, highlighting the contribution of Swift. Together with other operating satellites (most notably Fermi, but also AGILE, WISE, Planck) and ground based facilities such as Cherenkov…
The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope is designed to provide an unprecedented optical imaging dataset that will support investigations of our Solar System, Galaxy and Universe, across half the sky and over ten years of repeated observation.…
The Hubble Space Telescope's mission is summarized, with special emphasis placed on the Space Telescope Science Institute's unique experience with Hubble's behavior as an astronomical telescope in the environment of low earth orbit for over…
In this paper, I discuss the capabilities and limitations of an 8-10 meter ultraviolet/optical telescope in space, the proposed successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, in the context of galaxy studies. The exquisite spatial resolution and…
A (subjective) overview of Internet resources relevant to professional astronomers is given. Special emphasis is put on databases of astronomical objects and servers providing general information, e.g. on astronomical catalogues, finding…
I present an overview of the Swift mission, which was launched on November 20, 2004 to discover and observe the most energetic of astrophysical phenomena, gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). After almost 6 years in space the Observatory is in…
Because of their unique quality, Hubble Space Telescope (HST) data have played an important complementary role in studies of infrared (IR) galaxies conducted with major facilities, as VLT or Spitzer, and will be as well very valuable for…
In an era where astronomical data is expanding at an unprecedented rate, the importance of data sharing and accessibility among astronomy archives cannot be overstated. Since the 1990s, an international partnership between the Space…
I review progress in the past few years in studying the large-scale structure of the universe through redshift surveys of galaxies. Of the many statistical methods used to describe the galaxy distribution, I concentrate here on the power…
Submillimetre and millimetre-wave surveys with Herschel and the South Pole Telescope have revolutionised the discovery of strong gravitational lenses. Their follow-ups have been greatly facilitated by the multi-wavelength supplementary data…
We have analysed all the X-ray images centred on Gamma Ray Bursts generated by Swift over the last 15 years using automatic tools that do not require any expertise in X-ray astronomy, producing results in excellent agreement with previous…
Observatories, Institutes and Centers that support major astronomical facilities have, for decades, played a key role in maximizing the scientific return from their facilities and telescopes. It is crucial to realize that an "observatory"…
We discuss the importance of the direct link between the most accurate radio and optical reference frames that will become possible with the next-generation space astrometry missions in about a decade. The positions of more than 500 active…
The Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) is one of the most productive and influential photometric sky surveys in the history of observational astronomy. Originally designed to detect dark matter through gravitational…