Related papers: Astronomical technology - the past and the future
The ProAm effort in modern astronomy and astrophysics is now a reality. The achievements of amateur astronomers throughout the early history of astronomy are well known. However, during the 20th century, the high specialisation and the…
The determination of photospheric abundances in late-type stars from spectroscopic observations is a well-established field, built on solid theoretical foundations. Improving those foundations to refine the accuracy of the inferred…
In the distant past, astronomy was often intertwined with religion into a unified cosmos. As science became a distinct cultural enterprise, astronomy has witnessed a variety of rich interactions with other fields. Mathematical statistics…
Despite centuries of close association, statistics and astronomy are surprisingly distant today. Most observational astronomical research relies on an inadequate toolbox of methodological tools. Yet the needs are substantial: astronomy…
The determination of chemical abundances from stellar spectra is considered a mature field of astrophysics. Digital spectra of stars are recorded and processed with standard techniques, much like samples in the biological sciences.…
Over the next decade we will witness the development of a new infrastructure in support of data-intensive scientific research, which includes Astronomy. This new networked environment will offer both challenges and opportunities to our…
I summarize the excitement of my role primarily in the early years of X-ray Astronomy. As a "second-generation" X-ray astronomer, I was privileged to participate in the enormous advance of the field, both technically and astrophysically,…
Over the past decade, the Internet of Things and smart devices have become increasingly common as part of the technological infrastructure that surrounds us. The flow of data generated by these systems is characterized by enormous…
We discuss what hampers the rate of scientific progress in our exponentially growing world. The rapid increase in technologies leaves the growth of research result metrics far behind. The reason for this lies in the education of astronomers…
A brief summary of some highlights in the study of high energy astrophysical sources over the past decade is presented. It is argued that the great progress that has been made derives largely from the application of new technology to…
Interferometry has brought many new constraints in optical astronomy in the recent years. A major leap in this field is the opening of large interferometric facilities like the Very Large Telescope Interferometer and the Keck Interferometer…
The future of astronomy is inextricably entwined with the care and feeding of astronomical data products. Community standards such as FITS and NDF have been instrumental in the success of numerous astronomy projects. Their very success…
Over its more than thirty-year history, the Advanced Technologies and Instrumentation (ATI) program has provided grants to support technology development and instrumentation for ground-based astronomy. Through a combination of automated…
The Hubble Space Telescope has produced astonishing science over the past thirty years. Hubble's productivity can continue to soar for years to come provided some worn out components get upgraded. While powerful new ground-based and space…
Breakthroughs in physics and astrophysics are often driven by technological advances, with the recent detection of gravitational waves being one such example. This white paper focuses upon how improved astrometric and spectroscopic…
The satellite missions Hipparcos and Gaia by the European Space Agency will together bring a decrease of astrometric errors by a factor 10000, four orders of magnitude, more than was achieved during the preceding 500 years. This modern…
The successful construction and operation of highly sensitive gravitational-wave detectors is an achievement to be proud of, but the detection of actual signals is still around the corner. Even so, null results from recent searches have…
In the last ten years, the field of Cherenkov astronomy has become an important contributor to high energy astrophysics with the detection of eight objects at energies above 300 GeV. These observations have advanced our understanding of…
Africa has amazing potential due to natural (such as dark sky) and human resources for scientific research in astronomy and space science. At the same time, the continent is still facing many difficulties, and its countries are now…
Looking ahead to the next decade and imagining the landscape of astronomy in 2020, it is clear that astronomical surveys, large and small, plus extensive follow-up projects, will be a great engine of progress in our profession. Surveys have…