Related papers: The Next U.S. Astronomy Decadal Survey

Since the late 1970's, redshift surveys have been vital for progress in understanding large-scale structure in the Universe. The original CfA redshift survey collected spectra of 20-30 galaxies per clear night on a 1.5 meter telescope; over…

This is a joint summary of the reports from the three Astrophysics Program Analysis Groups (PAGs) in response to the "Planning for the 2020 Decadal Survey" charge given by the Astrophysics Division Director Paul Hertz. This joint executive…

Determining the internal structure of Uranus is a key objective for planetary science. Knowledge of Uranus's bulk composition and the distribution of elements is crucial to understanding its origin and evolutionary path. In addition, Uranus…

The tightest and most robust cosmological results of the next decade will be achieved by bringing together multiple surveys of the Universe. This endeavor has to happen across multiple layers of the data processing and analysis, e.g.,…

Deep learning has generated diverse perspectives in astronomy, with ongoing discussions between proponents and skeptics motivating this review. We examine how neural networks complement classical statistics, extending our data analytical…

This article is the written version of the closing talk presented at the conference `A Century of Cosmology' held at San Servolo, Italy, in August 2007. I focus on the prospects of constraining fundamental physics from cosmological…

Astronomy has been at the forefront of the development of the techniques and methodologies of data intensive science for over a decade with large sky surveys and distributed efforts such as the Virtual Observatory. However, it faces a new…

The fields of Astronomy and Astrophysics are technology limited, where the advent and application of new technologies to astronomy usher in a flood of discoveries altering our understanding of the Universe (e.g., recent cases include LIGO…

A significant opportunity for synergy between pure research and asteroid resource research exists. We provide an overview of the state of the art in asteroid resource utilization, and highlight where we can accelerate the closing of…

Astrophysics is a social enterprise exemplified here by the Dark Energy Survey (DES) which completed its fieldwork in 2019 after 16 years of preparation and observation, while data analysis continues. Society funds astrophysics on a grand…

The study of galaxies has changed dramatically over the past few decades with the advent of large-scale astronomical surveys. These large collaborative efforts have made available high-quality imaging and spectroscopy of hundreds of…

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.…

The tens of millions of radio sources to be detected with next-generation surveys pose new challenges, quite apart from the obvious ones of processing speed and data volumes. For example, existing algorithms are inadequate for source…

The rapid emergence of airborne platforms and imaging sensors are enabling new forms of aerial surveillance due to their unprecedented advantages in scale, mobility, deployment and covert observation capabilities. This paper provides a…

While an astronomer's job is typically to look out from Earth, the seriousness of the climate crisis has meant a shift in many astronomers' focus. Astronomers are starting to consider how our resource requirements may contribute to this…

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…

We summarize here the discussions around photospheric constraints, current uncertainties in models of stellar atmospheres, and reports on ongoing spectroscopic surveys. Rather than a panorama of the state of the art, we chose to present a…

Ground-based solar observations provide key contextual data (i.e., the 'big picture') to produce a complete description of the only astrosphere we can study in situ: our Sun's heliosphere. The next decade will see the beginning of…

Astronomy is experiencing a rapid growth in data size and complexity. This change fosters the development of data-driven science as a useful companion to the common model-driven data analysis paradigm, where astronomers develop automatic…

Over the last decade Galactic planetary nebula discoveries have entered a golden age due to the emergence of high sensitivity, high resolution narrow-band surveys of the Galactic plane. These have been coupled with access to complimentary,…