Related papers: Ground-Based Astrometry 2010-2020
Since the dawn of civilization, humanity has grappled with the big questions of existence and creation. Modern cosmology seeks to answer some of these questions using a combination of mathematics and measurement. The questions people hope…
The premise of "near-field cosmology" is that the study of nearby low-mass galaxies on a star-by-star basis has implications that extend far beyond the local Universe and include the nature of dark matter, lives and deaths of the first…
We describe observations in the nearby universe (<100 Mpc) with a 10-m or larger space-based telescope having imaging and spectral capabilities in the range 912-9000 \AA that would enable advances in the fields of massive stars, young…
We review progress over the past decade in observations of large-scale star formation, with a focus on the interface between extragalactic and Galactic studies. Methods of measuring gas contents and star formation rates are discussed, and…
The growing trove of precision astrometric observations from the Gaia space telescope and other surveys is revealing the structure and dynamics of the Milky Way in ever more exquisite detail. We summarize the current status of our…
In the past decade, observational cosmology has had one of the most exciting periods in the past century. The precision with which we have been able to measure cosmological parameters has increased tremendously, while at the same time, we…
Setting the timeline of the events which shaped the Milky Way disc through its 13 billion year old history is one of the major challenges in the theory of galaxy formation. Achieving this goal is possible using late-type stars, which in…
Astrometry as a technique has so far proved of limited utility when employed as either a follow-up tool or to independently search for planetary mass companions orbiting nearby stars. However, this is bound to change during the next decade.…
I review the status of science with wide field surveys. For many decades surveys have been the backbone of astronomy, and the main engine of discovery, as we have mapped the sky at every possible wavelength. Surveys are an efficient use of…
After a decade of great progress in understanding gas flow into, out of, and through the Milky Way, we are poised to merge observations with simulations to build a comprehensive picture of the multi-scale magnetized interstellar medium…
Recent advances in radio astrometry with the VLBA have resulted in near micro-arcsecond accurate trigonometric parallax and proper motion measurements for masers in star forming regions. We are now poised to directly measure the full…
The discovery of extra-solar planets is arguably the most exciting development in astrophysics during the past 15 years, rivalled only by the detection of dark energy. Two projects unite the communities of exoplanet scientists and…
In its all-sky survey, the ESA global astrometry mission Gaia will perform high-precision astrometry and photometry for 1 billion stars down to $V = 20$ mag. The data collected in the Gaia catalogue, to be published by the end of the next…
Studies of stellar populations, understood to mean collections of stars with common spatial, kinematic, chemical, and/or age distributions, have been reinvigorated during the last decade by the advent of large-area sky surveys such as SDSS,…
Wide-angle surveys have been an engine for new discoveries throughout the modern history of astronomy, and have been among the most highly cited and scientifically productive observing facilities in recent years. This trend is likely to…
Major advancements in space science and detector technology brought about a revolution in global astrometry, the science of measuring distances and motions of stars in the Milky Way and in the local universe. From the first ESA astrometric…
In recent years, observational $\gamma$-ray astronomy has seen a remarkable range of exciting new results in the high-energy and very-high energy regimes. Coupled with extensive theoretical and phenomenological studies of non-thermal…
The 2020s are poised to continue the past two decades of significant advances based on observations of dwarf galaxies in the nearby universe. Upcoming wide-field photometric surveys will probe substantially deeper than previous data sets,…
The study of stellar populations is a discipline that is highly dependent on both imaging and spectroscopy. I discuss techniques in different regimes of resolving power: broadband imaging (R~4), intermediate band imaging (R~16, 64),…
We consider what is the best way to extract science from large surveys of the Milky Way galaxy. The diversity of data gathered in these surveys, together with our position within the Galaxy, imply that science must be extracted by fitting…