Related papers: Star Watch Astrometry Probe
The highly successful SuperWASP planetary transit finding programme has surveyed a large fraction of both the northern and southern skies. There now exists in the its archive over 420 billion photometric measurements for more than 31…
Space interferometry is the inevitable endpoint of high angular resolution astrophysics, and a key technology that can be leveraged to analyse exoplanet formation and atmospheres with exceptional detail. However, the anticipated cost of…
Nulling interferometry is a technique providing high angular resolution which is the core of the space missions Darwin and the Terrestrail Planet Finder. The first objective is to reach a deep degree of starlight cancelation in the range 6…
The far-infrared (FIR) is one of the few wavelength ranges where no astronomical data with sub-arcsec resolution exist yet. Neither of the medium-term satellite projects like SPICA, Millimetron or OST will resolve this malady. Information…
At a fraction the total cost of an equivalent orbital mission, scientific balloon-borne platforms, operating above 99.7% of the Earth's atmosphere, offer attractive, competitive, and effective observational capabilities -- namely space-like…
Here I review the current state of the field of optical stellar interferometry, concentrating on ground-based work although a brief report of space interferometry missions is included. We pause both to reflect on decades of immense progress…
We evaluate the potential for gravitational-wave (GW) detection in the frequency band from 10 nHz to 1 $\mu$Hz using extremely high-precision astrometry of a small number of stars. In particular, we argue that non-magnetic, photometrically…
The Earth's atmospheric turbulence degrades the precision of ground-based astrometry. Here, we discuss these limitations and propose that, with proper treatment of systematics and by leveraging the many epochs available from the Korean…
The NEAT (Nearby Earth Astrometric Telescope) mission is a proposition submitted to ESA for its 2010 call for M-size mission. The main scientific goal is to detect and characterize planetary systems in an exhaustive way down to 1 Earth mass…
The imminent availability of large arrays of large light collectors deployed to exploit atmospheric Cherenkov radiation for gamma-ray astronomy at more than 100GeV, motivates the growing interest in application of intensity interferometry…
Atom interferometry represents a quantum leap in the technology for the ultra-precise monitoring of accelerations and rotations and, therefore, for all the science that relies on the latter quantities. These sensors evolved from a new kind…
The Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST), the world's largest single-dish radio telescope, lists the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) as one of its key scientific objectives. In this work, we present a…
Wide-field rapid sky surveys serve as critical observational methods for time-domain astronomical research. The Antarctic region, with several months of continuous dark nights annually, is an ideal site for time-domain astronomical…
The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a joint U.S./German project, is a 2.5-meter infrared airborne telescope carried by a Boeing 747-SP that flies in the stratosphere at altitudes as high as 45,000 feet (13.72 km).…
Over the last three decades, an exceptionally good science case has been made for pursuing gravitational wave (GW) astronomy. This has engendered a worldwide effort to detect the extremely weak signals generated by expected sources. With…
The ESA Gaia mission uses two telescopes to create the most ambitious survey of the Galaxy. The angle between them must be known with exquisite precision and accuracy. An interferometer: the Basic Angle Monitoring system measures its…
Breakthrough Starshot is an initiative to propel a sailcraft to Alpha Centauri within the next generation. As the sailcraft transits Alpha Centauri at 0.2 c, it looks for signs of life by imaging planets and gathering other scientific data.…
The Antarctic TianMu Staring Observation Program is a time-domain optical sky survey project carried out in Antarctica, capable of large sky coverage, high-cadence sampling, and long-period staring. It utilizes the exceptional observing…
The Wide-Field InfraRed Survey Telescope (WFIRST) is a NASA space mission in study for launch in 2024. It has a 2.4 m telescope, wide-field IR instrument operating in the 0.7 - 2.0 micron range and an exoplanet imaging coronagraph…
Over the last 20 years Hubble Space Telescope Fine Guidance Sensor interferometric astrometry has produced precise and accurate parallaxes of astrophysical interesting stars and mass estimates for stellar companions. We review parallax…