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Register a new userTraining the Next Generation of Astronomers
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While both society and astronomy have evolved greatly over the past fifty years, the academic institutions and incentives that shape our field have remained largely stagnant. As a result, the astronomical community is faced with several major challenges, including: (1) the training that we provide does not align with the skills that future astronomers will need, (2) the postdoctoral phase is becoming increasingly demanding and demoralizing, and (3) our jobs are increasingly unfriendly to families with children. Solving these problems will require conscious engineering of our profession. Fortunately, this Decadal Review offers the opportunity to revise outmoded practices to be more effective and equitable. The highest priority of the Subcommittee on the State of the Profession should be to recommend specific, funded activities that will ensure the field meets the challenges we describe.
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The astronomy community has made clear our shared scientific vision in the Astro2010 decadal survey. Who will build this future? The cost and scarcity of telescope resources makes vital learning through doing extremely difficult for students and early career researchers. What is needed now and in the future to provide a depth of knowledge, creativity, and experience in our field? At McDonald Observatory we have a clear model in answer to that question, and a long history of successfully training the next generation of instrument builders and observers. We must support and sustain small to medium range local resources such as McDonald to foster the successful growth of our field.
The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope for Polarimetry (BLASTPol) is a suborbital mapping experiment designed to study the role magnetic fields play in star formation. BLASTPol has had two science flights from McMurdo Station, Antarctica in 2010 and 2012. These flights have produced thousands of polarization vectors at 250, 350 and 500 microns in several molecular cloud targets. We present the design, specifications, and progress towards the next-generation BLASTPol experiment (BLAST-TNG). BLAST-TNG will fly a 40% larger diameter primary mirror, with almost 8 times the number of polarization-sensitive detectors resulting in a factor of 16 increase in mapping speed. With a spatial resolution of 22 arcseconds and four times the field of view of BLASTPol, BLAST-TNG will bridge the angular scales between Plancks low resolution all-sky maps and ALMAs ultra-high resolution narrow fields. The new receiver has a larger cryogenics volume, allowing for a 28 day hold time. BLAST-TNG employs three arrays of Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs) with 30% fractional bandwidth at 250, 350 and 500 microns. In this paper, we will present the new BLAST-TNG instrument and science objectives.
The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope for Polarimetry (BLASTPol) was a suborbital experiment designed to map magnetic fields in order to study their role in star formation processes. BLASTPol made detailed polarization maps of a number of molecular clouds during its successful flights from Antarctica in 2010 and 2012. We present the next-generation BLASTPol instrument (BLAST-TNG) that will build off the success of the previous experiment and continue its role as a unique instrument and a test bed for new technologies. With a 16-fold increase in mapping speed, BLAST-TNG will make larger and deeper maps. Major improvements include a 2.5 m carbon fiber mirror that is 40% wider than the BLASTPol mirror and ~3000 polarization sensitive detectors. BLAST-TNG will observe in three bands at 250, 350, and 500 microns. The telescope will serve as a pathfinder project for microwave kinetic inductance detector (MKID) technology, as applied to feedhorn coupled submillimeter detector arrays. The liquid helium cooled cryostat will have a 28-day hold time and will utilize a closed-cycle $^3$He refrigerator to cool the detector arrays to 270 mK. This will enable a detailed mapping of more targets with higher polarization resolution than any other submillimeter experiment to date. BLAST-TNG will also be the first balloon-borne telescope to offer shared risk observing time to the community. This paper outlines the motivation for the project and the instrumental design.
The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) can advance scientific frontiers beyond its groundbreaking 10-year survey. Here we explore opportunities for extended operations with proposal-based observing strategies, new filters, or transformed instrumentation. We recommend the development of a mid-decade community- and science-driven process to define next-generation LSST capabilities.
Astrometry, the measurement of positions and motions of the stars, is one of the oldest disciplines in Astronomy, extending back at least as far as Hipparchus discovery of the precession of Earths axes in 190 BCE by comparing his catalog with those of his predecessors. Astrometry is fundamental to Astronomy, and critical to many aspects of Astrophysics and Geodesy. In order to understand our planets and solar systems context within their surroundings, we must be able to to define, quantify, study, refine, and maintain an inertial frame of reference relative to which all positions and motions can be unambiguously and self-consistently described. It is only by using this inertial reference frame that we are able to disentangle our observations of the motions of celestial objects from our own complex path around our star, and its path through the galaxy, and the local group. Every aspect of each area outlined in the call for scientific frontiers in astronomy in the era of the 2020-2030 timeframe will depend on the quality of the inertial reference frame. In this white paper, we propose support for development of radio Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) capabilities, including the Next Generation Very Large Array (ngVLA), a radio astronomy observatory that will not only support development of a next generation reference frame of unprecedented accuracy, but that will also serve as a highly capable astronomical instrument in its own right. Much like its predecessors, the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) and other VLBI telescopes, the proposed ngVLA will provide the foundation for the next three decades for the fundamental reference frame, benefitting astronomy, astrophysics, and geodesy alike.
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