Origins Space Telescope: From First Light to Life: ESA Voyage 2050 White Paper

The Origins Space Telescope (Origins) is one of four science and technology definition studies selected by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in preparation of the 2020 Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal survey in the US.

Origins will trace the history of our origins from the time dust and heavy elements permanently altered the cosmic landscape to present-day life. It is designed to answer three major science questions: How do galaxies form stars, make metals, and grow their central supermassive black holes from reionization? How do the conditions for habitability develop during the process of planet formation? Do planets orbiting M-dwarf stars support life? Origins operates at mid- to far-infrared wavelengths from ~2.8 to 588 {\mu}m, is more than 1000 times more sensitive than prior far-IR missions due to its cold (~4.5 K) aperture and state-of-the-art instruments.

M. C. Wiedner, S. Aalto, J. Birkby, D. Burgarella, P. Caselli, V. Charmandaris, A. Cooray, E. De Beck, J.-M. Desert, M. Gerin, J. Goicoechea, M. Griffin, P. Hartogh, F. Helmich, M. Hogerheijde, L. Hunt, A. Karska, Q. Krall, D. Leisawitz, G. Melnick, M. Meixner, M. Mikako, Ch. Pearson, D. Rigopoulou, T. Roellig, I. Sakon, J. Staguhn

Comments: 24 pages, 12 figures, 5 tables. Submitted as White paper to Voyage 2050 Long-term planning of the ESA Science Programme. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1912.06213
Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
Cite as: arXiv:2012.02731 [astro-ph.IM] (or arXiv:2012.02731v1 [astro-ph.IM] for this version)
Submission history
From: Martina Wiedner
[v1] Fri, 4 Dec 2020 17:25:41 UTC (7,797 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2012.02731

Astrobiology