Related papers: A Vigorous Explorer Program
Our knowledge and understanding of the Universe is mainly based on observations of the electromagnetic radiation in a wide range of wavelengths. Only during the past two decades, new kinds of detectors have been developed, exploiting other…
The investigation of the emergence of life is a major endeavour of science. Astronomy is contributing to it in three fundamental manners: (1) by measuring the chemical enrichment of the Universe, (2) by investigating planet formation and…
The outer solar system provides a unique, quiet vantage point from which to observe the universe around us, where measurements could enable several niche astrophysical science cases that are too difficult to perform near Earth. NASA's New…
The Fermi Gamma ray Space Telescope, launched in 2008, has over 16 years of operations providing gamma ray (8 keV to 300 Gev) spectra science observations of cosmic phenomena. It continues to provide invaluable research for the astrophysics…
With the discovery of the first transiting extrasolar planetary system back to 1999, a great number of projects started to hunt for other similar systems. Because of the incidence rate of such systems was unknown and the length of the…
Stellar astronomy, fueled by massive capital investments, advances in numerical modeling and theory, is resurgent and arguably is on the verge of a magnificent renaissance. Powerful time domain optical surveys, both on ground and in space,…
The surface and subsurface of worlds beyond Mars remain largely unexplored. Yet these worlds hold keys to fundamental questions in planetary science - from potentially habitable subsurface oceans on icy moons to ancient records preserved in…
The development and deployment of interstellar missions will without doubt require orders of magnitude more resources than needed for current or past megaprojects (Apollo, Iter, LHC,...). Question is how enough resources for such…
The objective of neutrino astronomy, born with the identification of thermonuclear fusion in the sun and the particle processes controlling the fate of a nearby supernova, is to build instruments which reach throughout and far beyond our…
The SKA will be transformational for many areas of science, but in particular for the study of neutron stars and their usage as tools for fundamental physics in the form of radio pulsars. Since the last science case for the SKA, numerous…
Precision pulsar timing at the level of tens to hundreds of nanoseconds allows detection of nanohertz gravitational waves (GWs) from supermassive binary black holes (SMBBHs) at the cores of merging galaxies and, potentially, from exotic…
Some scientists are more likely to explore unfamiliar research topics while others tend to exploit existing ones. In previous work, correlations have been found between scientists' topic choices and their career performances. However,…
A century after Victor Hess' discovery of cosmic rays, balloon flights still play a central role in the investigation of cosmic rays over nearly their entire spectrum. We report on the current status of NASA balloon program for particle…
Sky survey telescopes and powerful targeted telescopes play complementary roles in astronomy. In order to investigate the nature and characteristics of the motions of very faint objects, a flexibly-pointed instrument capable of high…
For third generation gravitational wave detectors, such as the Einstein Telescope, gravitational wave signals from binary neutron stars can last up to a few days before the neutron stars merge. To estimate the measurement uncertainties of…
A strong instrumentation and detector R&D program has enabled the current generation of cosmic frontier surveys. A small investment in R&D will continue to pay dividends and enable new probes to investigate the accelerated expansion of the…
In the nearly 60 years of spaceflight we have accomplished wonderful feats of exploration that have shown the incredible spirit of the human drive to explore and understand our universe. Yet in those 60 years we have barely left our solar…
The detection of the accelerated expansion of the Universe has been one of the major breakthroughs in modern cosmology. Several cosmological probes (CMB, SNe Ia, BAO) have been studied in depth to better understand the nature of the…
Radio astronomy and active exploration of space are peers: both began by efforts of enthusiasts in the 1930s and got a major technological boost in the 1940s-50s. Thus, for the sake of a brief review at this very special conference, it is…
Computer simulations are invaluable tools for scientific discovery. However, accurate simulations are often slow to execute, which limits their applicability to extensive parameter exploration, large-scale data analysis, and uncertainty…