Related papers: The science enabled by a dedicated solar system sp…

Strong gravitational lensing enables a wide range of science: probing cosmography; testing dark matter models; understanding galaxy evolution; and magnifying the faint, small and distant Universe. However to date exploiting strong lensing…

The Habitable Exoplanet Observatory, or HabEx, has been designed to be the Great Observatory of the 2030s. For the first time in human history, technologies have matured sufficiently to enable an affordable space-based telescope mission…

Radio wavelength observations of solar system bodies are a powerful method of probing many characteristics of those bodies. From surface and subsurface, to atmospheres (including deep atmospheres of the giant planets), to rings, to the…

Understanding the surface and atmospheric conditions of Earth-size, rocky planets in the habitable zones (HZs) of low-mass stars is currently one of the greatest astronomical endeavors. Knowledge of the planetary effective surface…

With the discovery of galaxies that existed when the universe was very young (approximately 5 percent of its current age), of planets not in our own solar system, and with the tantalizing evidence that the conditions for life may have…

I review the current capabilities of small, medium and large telescopes in the study of minor bodies of the Solar System (MBOSS), with the goal of identifying those areas where the next generation of Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs) are…

Over the past decade, sky surveys such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey have proven the power of large data sets for answering fundamental astrophysical questions. This observational progress, based on a synergy of advances in telescope…

The World Space Observatory-Ultraviolet (WSO-UV) will provide access to the UV range during the next decade. The instrumentation on board will allow to carry out high resolution imaging, high sensitivity imaging, high resolution (R~55000)…

The large instantaneous sensitivity, a wide frequency coverage and flexible observation modes with large number of beams in the sky are the main features of the SKA observatory's two telescopes, the SKA-Low and the SKA-Mid, which are…

Space-based telescopes offer unparalleled opportunities for characterising exoplanets, Solar System bodies and stellar objects. However, observatories in low Earth orbits (e.g. Hubble, CHEOPS, Twinkle and an ever increasing number of…

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…

Lens time delays are a powerful probe of cosmology, provided that the gravitational potential of the main deflector can be modeled with sufficient precision. Recent work has shown that this can be achieved by detailed modeling of the host…

Solar sails enable missions to observe the solar environment from unique vantage points, such as sustained observations away from the Sun-Earth line; sub-L1 station keeping; high inclination solar orbits; Earth polar-sitting and…

The SKA will be transformational for many areas of science, but in particular for the study of neutron stars and their usage as tools for fundamental physics in the form of radio pulsars. Since the last science case for the SKA, numerous…

The field of time-domain astronomy has experienced unprecedented growth due to the increasing deployment of robotic telescopes capable of autonomous, round-the-clock sky monitoring. These instruments have revolutionized the detection and…

Utilisation of the material and energy resources of the Solar System will be essential for the development of a sustainable space economy and associated infrastructure. Science will be a major beneficiary of a space economy, even if its…

Experience in exploring our own solar system has shown that direct investigation of planetary bodies using space probes invariably yields scientific knowledge not otherwise obtainable. In the case of exoplanets, such direct investigation…

Exoplanetary science has reached a historic moment. The James Webb Space Telescope will be capable of probing the atmospheres of rocky planets, and perhaps even search for biologically produced gases. However this is contingent on…

Solar and heliospheric cosmic rays provide a unique perspective in cosmic ray research: we can observe not only the particles, but also the properties of the plasmas in which the they are accelerated and propagate, using in situ and…

To date, Galactic Astronomy has largely concerned itself with astrophysical processes, and with the locations, space motions and compositions of objects. Consider, for example, the elucidation of the components of the Galaxy over the past…