A Twenty Year Science Vision for European Astronomy
Three years ago, a group of European funding agencies, plus ESA and ESO, put forward the Astronet program to ensure close coordination of the astronomical developments within the Continent. One prime objective of this ERANET contract financed by the European Commission is to produce a long-term (∼ 20-year) strategic plan, similar in scope and content to the recurrent US decadal surveys. This is being pursued through a two-step process, first articulating a ’Science Vision’ with a set of prioritised science goals as well as an analysis on the generic facilities needed to reach them, followed by an Infrastructure Roadmap outlining the ways and means to implement the Vision. The first step is now completed, with the Science Vision document published at the end of September 2007; this paper presents the process that has been followed and the main conclusions reached.
Report by the ESA-ESO Working Group on Extra-Solar Planets
Various techniques are being used to search for extra-solar planetary signatures, including accurate measurement of radial velocity and positional (astrometric) displacements, gravitational microlensing, and photometric transits. Planned space experiments promise a considerable increase in the detections and statistical knowledge arising especially from transit and astrometric measurements over the years 2005-15, with some hundreds of terrestrial-type planets expected from transit measurements, and many thousands of Jupiter-mass planets expected from astrometric measurements. Beyond 2015, very ambitious space (Darwin/TPF) and ground (OWL) experiments are targeting direct detection of nearby Earth-mass planets in the habitable zone and the measurement of their spectral characteristics. Beyond these, `Life Finder' (aiming to produce confirmatory evidence of the presence of life) and `Earth Imager' (some massive interferometric array providing resolved images of a distant Earth) appear as distant visions. This report, to ESA and ESO, summarises the direction of exo-planet research that can be expected over the next 10 years or so, identifies the roles of the major facilities of the two organisations in the field, and concludes with some recommendations which may assist development of the field. The report has been compiled by the Working Group members and experts over the period June-December 2004.
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