Space Studies Board Annual Report 2005 (2006) / Chapter Skim
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5 Short Report
5 Short Report
Pages 95-106
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From page 95... ...
5 Short Report During 2005, the Space Studies Board and its committees issued one short report. The main text is reprinted in this section.
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From page 97... ...
It will assess progress toward realizing the vision for the field articulated in AANM and supplemented by Connecting Quarks with the Cosmos.2 This letter report presents the conclusions and recommendations of the Committee to Assess Progress Toward the Decadal Vision in Astronomy and Astrophysics. The judgments it reflects are based on the deliberations and experience of the committee and on information obtained in discussions with agency officials at the committee's meeting on October 23-24, 2004, at the Keck Center of the National Academies in Washington, D.C.3 The committee included some current members of the CAA, BPA, and SSB, as well as some members of the Astronomy and Astrophysics Survey Committee (which produced the AANM report)
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From page 98... ...
To their credit, the federal agencies that support astronomy and astrophysics research have responded quickly to these new discoveries at the intersection of physics and astronomy, as described in the Office of Science and Technology Policy's report The Physics of the Universe5 and in NASA's Beyond Einstein roadmap.6 Scientific research proceeds in a broad context that includes the evolving circumstances of the nation, and FY 2005 presents a considerably different fiscal picture than did FY 2000. A new presidential vision for exploration,7 together with the loss of the space shuttle Columbia, continues to generate programmatic changes at NASA, while at the National Science Foundation (NSF)
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From page 99... ...
The amount of dark matter and the properties of dark energy dictate the size and earliest emergence of the largest clusters of galaxies, which are permeated with hot gas and thus are being discovered and observed at radio and X-ray wavelengths. Chandra XRO and XMM-Newton have also shown that hot cluster gas is roiled by bubbles and jets, echoing ancient growth spurts of the supermassive black holes in galaxy nuclei within the clusters.
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From page 100... ...
Solar System Formation The formation and early evolution of our own solar system is recorded in the fossil record of material and debris contained within the Kuiper Belt, a ring or disk of material circling the Sun beyond the orbit of Neptune. The recent discovery of new large objects far beyond Pluto's orbit has led to studies of their surface composition and physical properties, and indicates the discovery potential of the AANM report's priorities like LST and GSMT.
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From page 101... ...
Deeply hidden black holes not yet detected will be mapped throughout the cosmos with future AANM priority missions like EXIST or an equivalent Black Hole Finder Probe.9 Supermassive Black Holes in Galaxy Nuclei Discoveries made in the 1990s showed that virtually every galaxy has at its center a supermassive black hole, and we know that the black hole has a mass proportional to the mass of stars in the bulge of the host galaxy, implying a physical connection between the formation of galaxies and the growth of supermassive black holes. Spitzer and HST will directly observe this physical connection, observations with GSMT and JWST will shed light on the origin of the correlation, and observations with Con-X will provide information on processes occurring just outside the black hole horizon.
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From page 102... ...
This committee sees no technological breakthroughs or challenges that require detailed further assessment or that imperil achievement of the AANM decadal vision.11 New technologies may well arise as part of the new exploration vision, in which case the timing will be optimal for their being fed into the next decadal survey. 10Pulsars are a form of neutron star.
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From page 103... ...
For example, the confirmation that supermassive black holes lie at the heart of galaxies -- including our own -- resulted from Chandra, HST, Spitzer, and ground-based telescope observations. The combination of HST and ground-based studies of supernovae yielded the first hint of dark energy and the accelerating expansion of the universe, confirmed shortly thereafter by WMAP observations of the cosmic microwave background and now being constrained in an independent way by the Chandra and XMM-Newton X-ray observatories.
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From page 104... ...
Demonstrating how agency processes can integrate new discoveries into the broad framework laid out by the decadal survey, Beyond Einstein reinforces the decadal survey's high-priority missions Con-X and LISA, highlighting them as facility-class missions called the Einstein Great Observatories. In addition to accomplishing the specific scientific goals proposed for them in the AANM report, these observatories will provide a broad and flexible science return across all of astrophysics, as have HST, CGRO, Chandra, and Spitzer before them.
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From page 105... ...
First, although the AANM report assumed that HST would be kept operating until 2010, it is the judgment of this committee that the AANM report's recommended priorities should form the basis of the nation's program in astronomy and astrophysics even if HST ceases operation. Second, if the cost of repairing HST or developing a fast-track HST replacement is large enough to threaten the timely completion of a substantial fraction of the projects recommended in the AANM report and Connecting Quarks with the Cosmos, then the scientific community should be involved in assessing the relative value of HST or its replacement vis-ŕ-vis the affected program.
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From page 106... ...
The peer review basic to the decadal survey process of prioritization and to the selection process for mission lines like Explorers and the Einstein Probes helps to ensure the critical examination essential to developing a successful national program. The committee and the community it represents value immensely the ongoing dialog between the astronomy and astrophysics community and the agencies.
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