Related papers: The Sooner: a Large Robotic Telescope
Observatories constructed solely for photometric monitoring make it possible to understand the temporal nature of objects over time scales that historically have been difficult to achieve. We report on one such observatory, the Remote…
Radio astronomy provides a unique window on the universe, allowing us to study: non-thermal processes (galactic nuclei, quasars, pulsars) at the highest angular resolution using VLBI, with low opacity. It is the most interesting wave band…
The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) is conceived as an 8.4-m telescope with CCD or CMOS focal plane covering most of a field 0.6 m in diameter, the latter exceeding the size of the largest photographic plates ever used in astronomy.…
Most major discoveries in astronomy are unplanned, and result from surveying the Universe in a new way, rather than by testing a hypothesis or conducting an investigation with planned outcomes. For example, of the 10 greatest discoveries…
Suppose an astronomer is equipped with a device capable of detecting emissions -- whether they be electromagnetic, gravitational, or neutrino -- from transient sources distributed throughout the cosmos. Because of source rate density…
Radio observations with Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) provide the highest resolution in astronomy. Combining earth-bound with space-based telescopes and advancing the observations to mm-wavelengths increases the resolution even…
There has never been a more exciting time in the overlapping areas of nuclear physics, particle physics and relativistic astrophysics than today. Orbiting observatories such as the Hubble Space Telescope, Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE),…
The study of transient phenomena in a multimessenger context is expected to remain a major pillar of astrophysical discovery in the decades ahead. Supernovae, Kilonovae, Black-Hole formation, Novae, GRBs, and tidal disruption events are…
The very high spatial resolution provided by Adaptive Optics assisted spectroscopic observations at 8m-class telescopes (e.g. with SINFONI at the VLT) will allow to greatly increase the number of direct black hole (BH) mass measurements…
We present the capabilities of the 2-m robotic Liverpool Telescope (LT), owned and operated by Liverpool John Moores University and situated at ORM, La Palma. Robotic control and scheduling of the LT make it especially powerful for…
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.…
We present a status report on the study of gamma-ray bursts (GRB) in the era of rapid follow-up using the world's largest robotic optical telescopes - the 2-m Liverpool and Faulkes telescopes. Within the context of key unsolved issues in…
Space based gravitational wave astronomy will open a completely new window on the Universe and massive black holes binaries are expected to be among the primary actors on this upcoming stage. The New Gravitational-wave Observatory (NGO) is…
Gigantic neutrino telescopes are primarily designed to search for very high energy neutrino radiation from the cosmos. Neutrinos travel unhindered over cosmological distances and therefore carry unique undistorted information about its…
NRT is an international project to build and operate the world's largest robotic telescope. The telescope will have a segmented primary mirror with an equivalent diameter of 4 m, a set of simultaneously mounted optical and near-infrared…
High-redshift Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) beyond redshift $\sim6$ are potentially powerful tools to probe the distant early Universe. Their detections in large numbers and at truly high redshifts call for the next generation of high-energy…
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…
The observation of small bodies in the Space Environment is an ongoing important task in astronomy. While nowadays new objects are mostly detected in larger sky surveys, several follow-up observations are usually needed for each object to…
Scientific research is a continuous process, and the speed of future progress can be estimated by the pace of finding explanations for previous research questions. In this observers based view of stellar pulsation and asteroseismology, we…
In recent decades, astronomy and astrophysics have experienced several fundamental changes. On one hand, there has been a significant increase in the observation of transient phenomena, which are short-lived events such as supernova…