Related papers: Science Driven arguments for a 10 sq.meter, 1 arcs…
Astrometry is one of the oldest branches of astronomy which measures the position, the proper motion and parallax of celestial objects. Following the Hipparcos and Gaia missions that have measured several billions of them using global…
The discovery of X-ray emission from cosmic sources in the 1960s has opened a new powerful observing window on the Universe. In fact, the exploration of the X-ray sky during the 70s-90s has established X-ray astronomy as a fundamental field…
An X-ray Interferometer (XRI) has recently been proposed as a theme for ESA's Voyage 2050 planning cycle, with the eventual goal to observe the X-ray sky with an unprecedented angular resolution better than 1 micro arcsec (5 prad) [1]. A…
Current X-ray observations and simulations show that gravitational lensing can be used to infer the structure near the event horizons of black holes, constrain the dynamics and evolution of black-hole accretion and outflows, test general…
SIMBOL-X is a high energy "mini" satellite class mission that is proposed by a European collaboration for a launch in 2009. SIMBOL-X is making use of a classical X-ray mirror, of ~600 cm2 maximum effective area, with a 30 m focal length in…
The high time resolution observations of the X-ray sky hold the key to a number of diagnostics of fundamental physics, some of which are unaccessible to other types of investigations, such as those based on imaging and spectroscopy.…
Improving angular resolution is one of X-ray astronomy's big challenges. While X-ray interferometry should eventually vastly improve broad-band angular resolution, in the near-term, X-ray telescopes will sacrifice angular resolution for…
The Athena+ X-ray mirror will provide a collecting area of 2 m^2 at 1 keV and an angular resolution of 5 arc seconds Half Energy Width. The manufacture and performance of this mirror is of paramount importance to the success of the mission.…
The objective of neutrino astronomy, born with the identification of thermonuclear fusion in the sun and the particle processes controlling the fate of a nearby supernova, is to build instruments which reach throughout and far beyond our…
XEUS, the X-ray Evolving Universe Spectroscopy mission, is at present an ESA-ISAS initiative for the study of the evolution of the hot Universe in the post-Chandra/XMM-Newton era. The key science objectives of XEUS are: Search for the…
The question "How did we get here and what will the future bring?" captures the human imagination and the attention of the National Academy of Science's Astronomy and Astrophysics Survey Commitee (AASC). Fulfillment of this "fundamental…
X-ray observatories contribute fundamental advances in Solar System studies by probing Sun-object interactions, developing planet and satellite surface composition maps, probing global magnetospheric dynamics, and tracking astrochemical…
SIMBOL-X is a high energy "mini" satellite class mission that is proposed by a French-Italian-English collaboration for a launch in 2009. SIMBOL-X is making use of a classical X-ray mirror, of ~ 600 cm2 maximum effective area, with a 30 m…
MSE is an 11.25m telescope with a 1.5 sq.deg. field of view. It can simultaneously obtain 3249 spectra at R=3000 from 360-1800nm, and 1083 spectra at R=40000 in the optical. The large field of view, large number of targets, as well as the…
Modern X-ray observatories yield unique insight into the astrophysical time domain. Each X-ray photon can be assigned an arrival time, an energy and a sky position, yielding sensitive, energy-dependent light curves and enabling…
Background. Relative astrometry at or below the micro-arcsec level with a 1m class space telescope has been repeatedly proposed as a tool for exo-planet detection and characterization, as well as for several topics at the forefront of…
SIMBOL-X is a hard X-ray mission, operating in the ~ 0.5-70 keV range, which is proposed by a consortium of European laboratories in response to the 2004 call for ideas of CNES for a scientific mission to be flown on a formation flying…
We outline the science case for a 30-40 m optical/infrared telescope in the Northern Hemisphere, optimised for transformative time-domain astronomy in the 2040s. Upcoming multi-wavelength and multi-messenger facilities will reveal fast,…
FORCE is a 1.2 tonnes small mission dedicated for wide-band fine-imaging x-ray observation. It covers from 1 to 80 keV with a good angular resolution of $15"$ half-power-diameter. It is proposed to be launched around mid-2020s and designed…
Diffractive X-ray telescopes using zone plates, phase Fresnel lenses, or related optical elements have the potential to provide astronomers with true imaging capability with resolution several orders of magnitude better than available in…