Related papers: The future of astronomy with small satellites
Satellite imagery is increasingly used to complement traditional data collection approaches such as surveys and censuses across scientific disciplines. However, we ask: Do all places on earth benefit equally from this new wealth of…
When the first CubeSats were launched nearly two decades ago, few people believed that the miniature satellites would likely prove to be a useful scientific tool. Skeptics abounded. However, the last decade has seen the highly successful…
Astronomy has played a major part in the development of civilisations, not only through conceptual developments, but most importantly through the very practical gains obtained through the observation of Sun, Moon planets and stars. Space…
The study of integrating photonic devices into astronomical instruments is the primary focus of astrophotonics. The growth in this area of study is relatively recent. Research related to astronomical spectroscopic phenomena has received a…
Gravitational-wave detectors with sensitivities sufficient to measure the radiation from astrophysical sources are rapidly coming into existence. By the end of this decade, there will exist several ground-based instruments in North America,…
Quantum optics potentially offers an information channel from the Universe beyond the established ones of imaging and spectroscopy. All existing cameras and all spectrometers measure aspects of the first-order spatial and/or temporal…
We review the relatively new, internet-enabled, and rapidly-evolving field of citizen science, focusing on research projects in stellar, extragalactic and solar system astronomy that have benefited from the participation of members of the…
Technosignatures refer to observational manifestations of technology that could be detected through astronomical means. Most previous searches for technosignatures have focused on searches for radio signals, but many current and future…
Asteroid photometry has three major applications: providing clues about asteroid surface physical properties and compositions, facilitating photometric corrections, and helping design and plan ground-based and spacecraft observations. The…
Astrometric issues for solar system studies are discussed. An overview gives references and cover all aspects of the solar system where astrometry is important: orbits of planets, moons, asteroids and NEOs, masses of asteroids, occultations…
The future of astronomy is inextricably entwined with the care and feeding of astronomical data products. Community standards such as FITS and NDF have been instrumental in the success of numerous astronomy projects. Their very success…
Over the past decade, neutrino astronomy has emerged as a new window into the extreme and hidden universe. Current-generation experiments have detected high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin and identified the first sources, opening…
The 2020s will be the most data-rich decade of astronomy in history. As the scale and complexity of our surveys increase, the problem of scheduling becomes more critical. We must develop high-quality scheduling approaches, implement them as…
The U.S. astronomy decadal surveys have been models for advice to government on how to apportion resources to optimise the scientific return on national investments in facilities and manpower. The U.S. is now gearing up to conduct its 2020…
A new generation of sub-orbital platforms will be operational in the next few years. These new telescopes will operate from airborne and balloon-borne platforms where the atmosphere is transparent enough to allow sensitive measurements to…
Although far-IR -- mm-wave astronomy has now been developing for several decades, access to this portion of the spectrum remains difficult and limited. Relative to their optical-wavelength counterparts, the submillimeter observatories are…
The lunar surface is a compelling location for large, distributed optical facilities, with significant advantages over orbital facilities for high spatial resolution astrophysics. The serious development of mission concepts is timely…
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…
Recent advances in miniaturization and commercial availability of critical satellite subsystems and detector technology have made small satellites (SmallSats, including CubeSats) an attractive, low-cost potential solution for space weather…
The Astrophysics of microquasars - galactic miniatures of the far distant quasars - has become one of the most active fields of modern Astronomy in recent years. Here I review the astronomical methods used for the investigation of these…