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The investigation of the emergence of life is a major endeavour of science. Astronomy is contributing to it in three fundamental manners: (1) by measuring the chemical enrichment of the Universe, (2) by investigating planet formation and…

Athena is an X-ray observatory-class mission concept, developed from April to December 2011 as a result of the reformulation exercise for L-class mission proposals in the framework of ESA's Cosmic Vision 2015-2025. Athena's science case is…

The increasing precision of spacecraft radiometric tracking data experienced in the last number of years, coupled with the huge amount of data collected and the long baselines of the available datasets, has made the direct observation of…

The Advanced Telescope for High ENergy Astrophysics (Athena) is the X-ray observatory mission selected by ESA within its Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 programme to address the Hot and Energetic Universe scientific theme. The ESO-Athena Synergy…

In May 2013, I responded with the present paper to ESA's call for White Papers for the definition of Large missions. This was half a year before the launch of ESA's large astrometry mission Gaia. The present proposal for a Gaia successor…

We present in detail the scientific objectives in fundamental physics of the Space-Time Explorer and QUantum Equivalence Space Test (STE-QUEST) space mission. STE-QUEST was pre-selected by the European Space Agency together with four other…

Tracing the formation and evolution of all supermassive black holes, including the obscured ones, understanding how black holes influence their surroundings and how matter behaves under extreme conditions, are recognized as key science…

We present the database of potential targets for the Large Interferometer For Exoplanets (LIFE), a space-based mid-infrared nulling interferometer mission proposed for the Voyage 2050 science program of the European Space Agency (ESA). The…

Aims. Rotation periods of cometary nuclei are scarce, though important when studying the nature and origin of these objects. Our aim is to derive a rotation period for the nucleus of comet C/2004 Q2 (Machholz). Methods. C/2004 Q2 (Machholz)…

The Advanced Compton Telescope (ACT), the next major step in gamma-ray astronomy, will probe the fires where chemical elements are formed by enabling high-resolution spectroscopy of nuclear emission from supernova explosions. During the…

As a short introduction to the astronomy session, the response of the community to the Call for Themes issued by ESA and the specific themes selected by the Astronomy Working Group are briefly presented in connection with the four grand…

The International Rosetta Mission was launched in 2004 and consists of the orbiter spacecraft Rosetta and the lander Philae. The aim of the mission is to map the comet 67P Churyumov Gerasimenko by remote sensing, to examine its environment…

Prospects for future supernova surveys are discussed, focusing on the ESA Euclid mission and the European Extremely Large Telescope(E-ELT), both expected to be in operation around the turn of the decade. Euclid is a 1.2m space survey…

Gaia is a cornerstone mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) selected in 2000, with a target launch date of 2011. The Gaia mission will perform a survey of about 1 billion sources brighter than V=20. Its goal is to provide astrometry…

Powerful new observational facilities will come online over the next decade, enabling a number of discovery opportunities in the "Cosmic Frontier", which targets understanding of the physics of the early universe, dark matter and dark…

The objective of the proposed MAQRO mission is to harness space for achieving long free-fall times, extreme vacuum, nano-gravity, and cryogenic temperatures to test the foundations of physics in macroscopic quantum experiments. This will…

Galaxy clusters are one of the important cosmological probes to test the consistency of the observable structure and evolution of our Universe with the predictions of specific cosmological models. We use results from our analysis of the…

XMM-Newton is the direct precursor of the future ESA ATHENA mission. A study of its particle-induced background provides therefore significant insight for the ATHENA mission design. We make use of about 12 years of data, products from the…

It has been 20 years since planning began for the 1995 United Nations International Conference on Near-Earth Objects. The conference proceedings established the scientific basis for an international organizational framework to support…

One of the most promising space missions of ESA is the astrometric satellite Gaia, which will provide very precise astrometry and multicolour photometry, for all 1.3 billion objects to V~20, and radial velocities with accuracies of a few…