Related papers: Astronomical Optical Interferometry from the Lunar…
Motivated by efforts to return humanity to the Moon, three cases are reviewed for X-ray astronomy from the lunar surface: (1) Facilitation of ambitious engineering designs including high throughput telescopes, long focal length optics and…
Current thinking about the Moon as a destination has revitalized interest in lunar astronomical observatories. Once seen by a large scientific community as a highly enabling site, the dramatic improvement in capabilities for free-space…
NASA's return to the Moon presents unparalleled opportunities to advance high-impact scientific capabilities. At the cutting edge of these possibilities are extremely high-resolution interferometric observations at visible and ultraviolet…
The lunar surface has historically been considered an optimal site for a broad range of astronomical telescopes. That assumption, which has come to be somewhat reflexive, is critically examined in this paper and found to be poorly…
A radio telescope placed in lunar orbit, or on the surface of the Moon's farside, could be of great value to the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). The advantage of such a telescope is that it would be shielded by the body of…
The lunar geological record has much to tell us about the earliest history of the Solar System, the origin and evolution of the Earth-Moon system, the geological evolution of rocky planets, and the near-Earth cosmic environment throughout…
We look at what astronomy from the Moon might be like in the visible over the next few decades. The Moon offers the possibility of installing large telescopes or interferometers with instruments larger than those on orbiting telescopes. We…
We propose a new instrumental concept for long-baseline optical single-mode interferometry using integrated optics which were developed for telecommunication. Visible and infrared multi-aperture interferometry requires many optical…
The lunar surface allows a unique way forward in cosmology, to go beyond current limits. The far side provides an unexcelled radio-quiet environment for probing the dark ages via 21 cm interferometry to seek elusive clues on the nature of…
Adaptive Optics is a prime example of how progress in observational astronomy can be driven by technological developments. At many observatories it is now considered to be part of a standard instrumentation suite, enabling ground-based…
The lunar surface has been exposed to the space environment for billions of years and during this time has accumulated records of a wide range of astrophysical phenomena. These include solar wind particles and the cosmogenic products of…
We review the potential of Astrophotonics, a relatively young field at the interface between photonics and astronomical instrumentation, for spectro-interferometry. We review some fundamental aspects of photonic science that drove the emer-…
We outline a concept for OWL-Moon, a 50-100m aperture telescope located on the surface of the Moon, to address three major areas in astronomy, namely the detection of biosignatures on habitable exoplanets, the geophysics of exoplanets, and…
The current status of the high spatial resolution imaging interferometry in optical astronomy is reviewed in the light of theoretical explanation, as well as of experimental constraints that exist in the present day technology. The basic…
Numerous missions planned for the next decade are likely to target a handful of smal sites of interest on the Moon's surface, creating risks of crowding and interference at these locations. The Moon presents finite and scarce areas with…
By volume, more than 99% of the solar system has not been imaged at radio frequencies. Almost all of this space (the solar wind) can be traversed by fast electrons producing radio emissions at frequencies lower than the terrestrial…
The number of publications of aperture-synthesis images based on optical long-baseline interferometry measurements has recently increased due to easier access to visible and infrared interferometers. The interferometry technique has now…
Interferometry has brought many new constraints in optical astronomy in the recent years. A major leap in this field is the opening of large interferometric facilities like the Very Large Telescope Interferometer and the Keck Interferometer…
We address three major questions in astronomy, namely the detection of biosignatures on habitable exoplanets, the geophysics of exoplanets and cosmology. To achieve this goal, two requirements are needed. First a very large aperture to…
The present `state of the art' and the path to future progress in high spatial resolution imaging interferometry is reviewed. The review begins with a treatment of the fundamentals of stellar optical interferometry, the origin, properties,…