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The StarLight program conceptualizes fast interstellar travel via small wafer satellites (wafersats) that are propelled by directed energy. This process is wildly different from traditional space travel and trades large and slow spacecraft…
GALSIM is a collaborative, open-source project aimed at providing an image simulation tool of enduring benefit to the astronomical community. It provides a software library for generating images of astronomical objects such as stars and…
The rise of direct detection of gravitational waves (GWs) started a new era in multi-messenger astrophysics. Like GWs, many other astrophysical transient sources suffer from poor localization, which can span tens to thousands of square…
The Roman Space Telescope will have the first advanced coronagraph in space, with deformable mirrors for wavefront control, low-order wavefront sensing and maintenance, and a photon-counting detector. It is expected to be able to detect and…
High-contrast imaging surveys for exoplanet detection have shown giant planets at large separations to be rare. It is important to push towards detections at smaller separations, the part of the parameter space containing most planets. The…
As we approach the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) era, several studies have emerged that aim to: 1) characterize how the instruments will perform and 2) determine what atmospheric spectral features could theoretically be detected using…
Using the high-resolution OLED screen of a smartphone to project arbitrary scenes and patterns can open a complete new dimension for testing sensors in the visible. Based on an original concept from JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), this…
Neutrino telescopes offer an alternative way to explore the Universe. Several projects are in operation or under construction. A detector under the ocean is very promising because of the very accurate angular resolution that it provides.…
The photometric precision, monitoring baselines, and rapid, even sampling rates required by modern satellites designed for detecting the signal of transiting exoplanets are ideally suited to a large number of applications in high-energy…
Advances in high-precision spectrographs have paved the way for the search for an Earth analogue orbiting a Sun-like star within its habitable zone. However, the research community remains limited by the presence of stellar noise produced…
Interactive visualization and simulation of astrophysical phenomena help astronomers and enable digital planetariums and television documentaries to take their spectators on a journey into deep space to explore the astronomical wonders of…
In support of the National Acadamies' Exoplanet Science Strategy, this whitepaper outlines key technology challenges for studying the diversity of worlds in the Galaxy and in searching for habitable planets. Observations of habitable…
Most major discoveries in astronomy are unplanned, and result from surveying the Universe in a new way, rather than by testing a hypothesis or conducting an investigation with planned outcomes. For example, of the 10 greatest discoveries…
The historical development of ground based astronomical telescopes leads us to expect that space-based astronomical telescopes will need to be operational for many decades. The exchange of scientific instruments in space will be a…
Short duration lensing events tend to be generated by low-mass lenses or by lenses with high transverse velocities. Furthermore, for any given lens mass and speed, events of short duration are preferentially caused by nearby lenses…
During the last couple of years, observers have started to make plans for a Virtual Observatory, as a federation of existing data bases, connected through levels of software that enable rapid searches, correlations, and various forms of…
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…
HERMES (High Energy Rapid Modular Ensemble of Satellites) is an innovative mission aiming to observe transient high-energy events such as gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) through a constellation of CubeSats hosting a broadband X and gamma-ray…
Adaptive optics systems are essential on all large telescopes where image quality is important. These are complex systems with many design parameters requiring optimisation before good performance can be achieved. The simulation of adaptive…
A re-purposed Kepler mission could continue the search for nearly Earth-sized planets in very short-period (< 1 day) orbits. Recent surveys of the Kepler data already available have revealed at least a dozen such planetary candidates, and a…