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The upcoming launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in less than three years is certain to bring a revolution in our understanding of many area of astrophysics, with one of the key goals being galaxy evolution. As the first…

Provided that sufficient resources are deployed, we can look forward to an extraordinary future in which we will characterize potentially habitable planets. Until now, we have had to base interpretations of observations on habitability…

Upcoming NASA astrophysics missions such as the James Webb Space Telescope will search for signs of life on planets transiting nearby stars. Doing so will require co-adding dozens of transmission spectra to build up sufficient signal to…

Astrophysical measurements away from the 1 AU orbit of Earth can enable several astrophysical science cases that are challenging or impossible to perform from Earthbound platforms, including: building a detailed understanding of the…

In the era of Extremely Large Telescopes, the current generation of 8-10m facilities are likely to remain competitive at far-blue visible wavelengths for the foreseeable future. High-efficiency (>20%) observations of the ground UV (300-400…

Coronal astronomy is by now a fairly mature discipline, with a quarter century having gone by since the detection of the first stellar X-ray coronal source (Capella), and having benefitted from a series of major orbiting observing…

The concept of putting a neutrino detector in close orbit of the sun has been unexplored until very recently. The primary scientific return is to vastly enhance our understanding of the solar interior, which is a major NASA goal.…

We present the Strong Lensing Science Collaboration's (SLSC) recommended observing targets for the science verification and science validation phases of commissioning. Our recommendations have been developed in collaboration with the Dark…

The VESPA data access system focuses on applying Virtual Observatory (VO) standards and tools to Planetary Science. Building on a previous EC-funded Europlanet program, it has reached maturity during the first year of a new Europlanet 2020…

The Astro2010 Decadal Survey recommended a Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) as its top priority for a new large space mission. As conceived by the decadal survey, WFIRST would carry out a dark energy science program, a…

Telescope and detector developments continuously enable deeper and more detailed studies of astronomical objects. Larger collecting areas, improvement in dispersion and detector techniques, and higher sensitivities allow detection of more…

In support of the Astrobiology Science Strategy, this whitepaper outlines some key technology challenges pertaining to the remote search for life in exoplanetary systems. Finding evidence for life on rocky planets outside of our solar…

The Star-Planet Activity Research CubeSat (SPARCS) is a NASA-funded 6U-CubeSat mission designed to monitor ultraviolet (UV) radiation from low-mass stars. These stars' relatively high-frequency and high-energy UV flares significantly affect…

The recently commissioned 3.6-m Devasthal optical telescope has been used for various tests and science observations using three main instruments, namely, a charge-coupled device camera, a near-infrared camera, and an optical…

The search for life in the universe is a major theme of astronomy and astrophysics for the next decade. Searches for technosignatures are complementary to searches for biosignatures, in that they offer an alternative path to discovery, and…

One of the most exciting scientific challenges is to detect Earth-like planets in the habitable zones of other stars in the galaxy and search for evidence of life. The ability to observe and characterise dozens of potentially Earth-like…

I review the status of science with wide field surveys. For many decades surveys have been the backbone of astronomy, and the main engine of discovery, as we have mapped the sky at every possible wavelength. Surveys are an efficient use of…

This white paper recognizes gaps in observations that will, when addressed, much improve solar radiation hazard and geomagnetic storm forecasting. Radiation forecasting depends on observations of the entire "Solar Radiation Hemisphere" that…

[Abridged] It is expected that the ongoing and future space-borne planet survey missions including TESS, PLATO, and Earth 2.0 will detect thousands of small to medium-sized planets via the transit technique, including over a hundred…

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…