Related papers: A Vigorous Explorer Program
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are among the most energetic events in the universe, offering insights into stellar collapse, extreme matter behavior, and cosmic evolution. The advent of multi-messenger astronomy, combining electromagnetic,…
The NASA Great Observatories Maturation Program is a development plan to efficiently and effectively develop large, strategic astrophysics missions. Suborbital rocket and balloon programs have long been a key development tool for enabling…
I describe the various elements of the NASA Science Mission Directorate's Astrophysics Division Research and Analysis Program and provide quantitative descriptions for factors such as proposal submission characteristics, proposal success…
A new all-sky visible and Near-InfraRed (NIR) space astrometry mission with a wavelength cutoff in the K-band is not just focused on a single or small number of key science cases. Instead, it is extremely broad, answering key science…
Gamma-ray bursts (GRB), at least those with a duration longer than a few seconds are the most energetic events in the Universe and occur at cosmological distances. The ECLAIRs micro-satellite, to be launched in 2009, will provide…
We report the first year on-orbit performance results for the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX), a NASA Small Explorer that is performing a survey of the sky in two ultraviolet bands. The instrument comprises a 50 cm diameter modified…
In the last decade, the Kepler and CoRoT space-photometry missions have demonstrated the potential of asteroseismology as a novel, versatile and powerful tool to perform exquisite tests of stellar physics, and to enable precise and accurate…
X-ray astronomy is our gateway to the hot universe. More than half of the baryons in the cosmos are too hot to be visible at shorter wavelengths. Studying the extreme environments of black hole and neutron star vicinities also requires…
Astrophysics is gaining increased attention from the particle and nuclear physics communities, as budget cuts, delays, and cancellations limit opportunities for breakthrough research at accelerator laboratories. Observations of cosmic rays…
In this contribution to the proceedings of the 182nd Nobel Symposium, I reflect on the concept of "discovery" as it is used by physicists and astronomers. In particular, I comment on how the scientific community distinguishes discoveries…
The existence of neutron stars was not confirmed until the discovery of pulsars at radio wavelengths in late 1960s. Since then, these highly compact and magnetized objects have been observed across the electromagnetic spectrum, and widely…
The NASA/IPAC Teacher Archive Research Program (NITARP) provides a year-long authentic astronomy research project by partnering a research astronomer with small groups of educators. NITARP has worked with a total of 103 educators since…
Kepler is a NASA mission designed to detect exoplanets and characterize the properties of exoplanetary systems. Kepler also includes an asteroseismic programme which is being conducted through the Kepler Asteroseismic Science Consortium…
With the discovery of a high-energy neutrino flux in the 0.1 PeV to PeV range from beyond the Earth's atmosphere with the IceCube detector, neutrino astronomy has achieved a major breakthrough in the exploration of the high-energy universe.…
In 2002, Ray Davis and Masatoshi Koshiba were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics ``for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, in particular for the detection of cosmic neutrinos.'' However, while astronomy has undergone a revolution in…
In the last decade, neutrino astronomy has taken off with two major breakthroughs, the first observation of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos in 2013 and the first evidence for gamma-rays and neutrinos from a single object published in…
Improvements in the precision of the astrophysical flux scale are needed to answer fundamental scientific questions ranging from cosmology to stellar physics. The unexpected discovery that the expansion of the universe is accelerating was…
Laser-accelerated lightsails enable new types of missions that are very different from the Breakthrough Starshot mission to the Centauri system that aims to send 1 gram of payload at 0.2 c. The present work widens the mission design space…
The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) is a NASA Small Explorer mission that will carry the first focusing hard X-ray (5 -- 80 keV) telescope to orbit. NuSTAR will offer a factor 50 -- 100 sensitivity improvement compared to…
Anomalies drive scientific discovery -- they are associated with the cutting edge of the research frontier, and thus typically exploit data in the low signal-to-noise regime. In astronomy, the prevalence of systematics --- both "known…