The long-awaited report called Astro2020, which details what awaits us in the next twenty years in astronomy and astrophysics, has finally been published today. Astro2020 is also part of the Decadal Survey, a list of recommendations put forward by space experts in the early 2000s that also included detailed recommendations for certain new telescopes, including the James Webb Telescope.
“We are on the threshold of a new golden age of discovery, both on the ground and in space: can we really find evidence for life on another planet?” Heidi Hammel, vice president of science at the Association of Astronomy Research Universities, stated that he thinks the report can play a big role in finding the answer to this question and that the people who will find the answer to the question may be “this generation”.
New telescope could be a candidate for the throne of Hubble Space Telescope
The part of the report that excited American astrophysicists the most was undoubtedly a new space telescope, which is very likely to break new ground in the search for habitable worlds – and the creatures that may live in those worlds.
In the report, expert astronomers suggest using a new fleet of telescopes that can probe a much wider range of frequencies, from infrared to X-rays, rather than focusing on a narrow band.
The most ambitious telescope of this proposed group is; Although it made a great impression at the time, it seems to be a candidate to replace the rapidly aging Hubble Space Telescope. This as-yet-unnamed telescope is expected to have dimensions three times larger than Hubble and cost $11 billion. According to the report, the construction of the massive telescope is scheduled to be completed by the end of this decade, and to be operational in the mid-2040s. The new telescope will be designed to probe the atmospheres of these planets to view potentially habitable exoplanets and detect signs of extraterrestrial life, a priority for many astronomers.
47887
