Related papers: Who are we now?
Multi-messenger astronomy has experienced an explosive development in the past few years. While not being a particularly young field, it has recently attracted a lot of attention by several major discoveries and unprecedented observation…
This brief article presents the introduction and draft of the fundamental ideas developed at length in the book of the same title, which gives a challenging point of view about science and its history/philosophy/sociology. Science is in…
With the new discoveries enabled thanks to the recent space missions, stellar physics is going through a revolution. However, these discoveries opened the door to many new questions that require more observations. The European Space…
The astronomical community is grappling with the increasing volume and complexity of data produced by modern telescopes, due to difficulties in reducing, accessing, analyzing, and combining archives of data. To address this challenge, we…
I was asked at the end of this conference to provide a few comments on the present status of the field of cosmic abundances, which I summarize (and extend upon) in this contribution. A discussion of the present ``state of play'' is given,…
Radio telescopes observe extremely faint emission from astronomical objects, ranging from compact sources to large scale structures that can be seen across the whole sky. Satellites actively transmit at radio frequencies (particularly at…
In recent years, the striking gender imbalance in the physical sciences has been a topic for much debate. National bodies and professional societies in the astronomical and space sciences are now taking active steps to understand and…
We report on a survey of astronomers asking questions at the most recent National Astronomy Meeting (NAM2014). The gender balance of both speakers and session chairs at NAM (31% and 29% women respectively) closely matched that of attendees…
Perhaps more than other physical sciences, astronomy is frequently statistical in nature. The objects under study are inaccessible to direct manipulation in the laboratory, so the astronomer is restricted to observing a few external…
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…
The US professional astronomy and astrophysics fields are not representative of the diversity of people in the nation. For example, 2017 AIP reports show that in 2014, women made up only about 20 percent of the faculty in astronomy and…
The global climate crisis poses new risks to humanity, and with them, new challenges to the practices of professional astronomy. Avoiding the more catastrophic consequences of global warming by more than 1.5 degrees requires an immediate…
The next decade of survey astronomy has the potential to transform our knowledge of variable stars. Stellar variability underpins our knowledge of the cosmological distance ladder, and provides direct tests of stellar formation and…
This is a presentation of the purpose of astronomy in the context of modern society. After exposing two misconceptions about astronomy, I detail its role in five domains, certified knowledge, incorporated abilities, innovations, collective…
To face recent observational results obtained in multi-wavelength studies from neutron stars and pulsars with the various theoretical models and to discuss on future perspectives on neutron star astronomy we organized a Joined Discussion…
We present a study on the gender balance, in speakers and attendees, at the recent major astronomical conference, the American Astronomical Society meeting 223, in Washington, DC. We conducted an informal survey, yielding over 300 responses…
This is a personal review of various issues related to massive photometric and astrometric searches. A complete inventory of variable stars down to almost any magnitude limit will improve our understanding of the stellar evolution and the…
The flat matter dominated Universe that dominated cosmological model building for much of the past 20 years does not correspond to the Universe in which we live. This has profound implications both for our understanding of dark matter, and…
We report on the results of a survey we conducted on the Japanese public's attitudes toward astronomy. This survey was conducted via an online questionnaire, with 2,000 responses received. Based on this data, we present what kind of…
Modern astronomy increasingly relies upon systematic surveys, whose dedicated telescopes continuously observe the sky across varied wavelength ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum; some surveys also observe non-electromagnetic…