Related papers: The National Virtual Observatory
The dramatic confrontation between new observations and theories of the early and recent universe makes cosmology one of the most rapidly advancing fields in the physical sciences. The universe is a unique laboratory in which to probe…
Unless our universe is decaying at an astronomical rate (i.e., on the present cosmological timescale of Gigayears, rather than on the quantum recurrence timescale of googolplexes), it would apparently produce an infinite number of observers…
The singular way of scheduling at major observatories has favored certain types of astronomy. This has led to the discrimination of certain types of observations which could not be accommodated. It is the goal of future operations to open…
The next generation of telescopes and instruments are facilitating our understanding of the Universe by producing data at a pace that beats all projections, and astronomers today are left in the face of an avalanche of data like never…
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…
Observational astronomy has changed drastically in the last decade: manually driven target-by-target instruments have been replaced by fully automated robotic telescopes. Data acquisition methods have advanced to the point that terabytes of…
Astronomy is the study of the Universe and all the objects that it comprises. Our attention is therefore usually focused beyond Earth, home to the only form of life known today. However, how can we continue to explore the secrets of the…
Astronomy is entering a new era of discovery, coincident with the establishment of new facilities for observation and simulation that will routinely generate petabytes of data. While an increasing reliance on automated data analysis is…
Activities related to access to astronomical facilities and data could offer an effective, entry-level path for outreach and astronomy education. The Government of Italy proposed the Open Universe initiative that was adopted by the United…
This paper examines whether unitary evolution alone is sufficient to explain emergence of the classical world from the perspective of computability theory. Specifically, it looks at the problem of how the choice related to the measurement…
The number of small satellites has grown dramatically in the past decade from tens of satellites per year in the mid-2010s to a projection of tens of thousands in orbit by the mid-2020s. This presents both problems and opportunities for…
The mining of Virtual Observatories (VOs) is becoming a powerful new method for discovery in astronomy. Here we report on the development of SkyDOT (Sky Database for Objects in the Time domain), a new Virtual Observatory, which is dedicated…
Astrophysical observations of the cosmos allow us to probe extreme physics and answer foundational questions on our universe. Modern astronomy is increasingly operating under a holistic approach, probing the same question with multiple…
The global climate crisis poses new risks to humanity, and with them, new challenges to the practices of professional astronomy. Avoiding the more catastrophic consequences of global warming by more than 1.5 degrees requires an immediate…
Harnessing the sheer discovery potential of gravitational wave astronomy will require bold, deliberate, and sustained efforts to train and develop the requisite workforce. The next decade requires a strategic plan to build -- from the…
Progress in astronomy comes from interpreting the signals encoded in the light received from distant objects: the distribution of light over the sky (images), over photon wavelength (spectrum), over polarization angle, and over time…
Low-mass objects are ubiquitous in our Galaxy. Their low temperature provides them with complex atmospheres characterised by the presence of strong molecular absorption bands which, together with their faintness, have made their accurate…
Astronomy has long had a working network of archives supporting the curation of publications and data. The discipline has already created many of the features which perplex other areas of science: (1) data repositories: (supra)national…
Cosmology contributes a good deal to the investigation of variation of fundamental physical constants. High resolution data is available and allows for detailed analysis over cosmological distances and a multitude of methods were developed.…
Astronomy has been an inherently visual area of science for millenia, yet a majority of its significant discoveries take place in wavelengths beyond human vision. There are many people, including those with low or no vision, who cannot…