Related papers: Ground-Based Astrometry 2010-2020
Gaia is an all sky, high precision astrometric and photometric satellite of the European Space Agency (ESA) due for launch in 2010-2011. Its primary mission is to study the composition, formation and evolution of our Galaxy. Gaia will…
The Gaia astrometric mission - the Hipparcos successor - is described in some detail, with its three instruments: the two (spectro)photometers (BP and RP) covering the range 330-1050 nm, the white light (G-band) imager dedicated to…
The study of stellar structure and evolution is one of the main building blocks of astrophysics, and the Sun has an importance both as the star that is most amenable to detailed study and as the star that has by far the biggest impact on…
Understanding the 3D structure of the Milky Way is a crucial step in deriving properties of the star-forming regions, as well as the Galaxy as a whole. We present a novel 3D map of the Milky Way plane that extends to 10 kpc distance from…
Asteroid surveys are the backbone of asteroid science, and with this in mind we begin with a broad review of the impact of asteroid surveys on our field. We then provide a brief history of asteroid discoveries so as to place contemporary…
I present a review of astrometric techniques and instrumentation utilized to search for, detect, and characterize extra-solar planets. First, I briefly summarize the properties of the present-day sample of extrasolar planets, in connection…
The Gaia space project, planned for launch in 2011, is one of the ESA cornerstone missions, and will provide astrometric, photometric and spectroscopic data of very high quality for about one billion stars brighter than V=20. This will…
Science opportunities and recommendations concerning optical/infrared polarimetry for the upcoming decade in the fields of stars and stellar evolution. Community-based White Paper to Astro2010 in response to the call for such papers.
Substellar multiplicity is a key outcome of the formation process. The biggest challenge for the next decade will be to distinguish between the formation history, environmental conditions, and dynamical evolution leading to the least…
This document discusses the three main lines expected to dominate massive-star research in the 2040s, namely: (1) The role of metallicity in stellar evolution, especially in determining the end products such as gravitational-wave…
We summarize the comet science provided by surveys. This includes surveys where the detections of comets are an advantageous benefit but were not part of the survey\'s original intent, as well as some pointed surveys where comet science was…
Studies of nearby galaxies including the Milky Way have provided fundamental information on the evolution of structure in the Universe, the existence and nature of dark matter, the origin and evolution of galaxies, and the global features…
In May 2013, I responded with the present paper to ESA's call for White Papers for the definition of Large missions. This was half a year before the launch of ESA's large astrometry mission Gaia. The present proposal for a Gaia successor…
A survey that can cover the sky in optical bands over wide fields to faint magnitudes with a fast cadence will enable many of the exciting science opportunities of the next decade. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will have an…
Eight years after the ADS first appeared the last decadal survey wrote: "NASA's initiative for the Astrophysics Data System has vastly increased the accessibility of the scientific literature for astronomers. NASA deserves credit for this…
A suite of vast stellar surveys mapping the Milky Way, culminating in the Gaia mission, is revolutionizing the empirical information about the distribution and properties of stars in the Galactic stellar disk. We review and lay out what…
If a subset of advanced civilizations in the universe choose to rapidly expand into unoccupied space, these civilizations would have the opportunity to grow to a cosmological scale over the course of billions of years. If such life also…
The understanding and modeling of the structure and evolution of stars is based on statistical physics as well as on hydrodynamics. Today, a precise identification and proper description of the physical processes at work in stellar…
The advent of deep, wide, accurate, digital photometric surveys exemplified by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) has had a profound impact on studies of the Milky Way. In the past decade, we have transitioned from a scarcity to an…
This paper describes outstanding issues in astrophysics and cosmology that can be solved by astronomical observations in a broad spectral range from far infrared to millimeter wavelengths. The discussed problems related to the formation of…