World space observatory-ultraviolet among UV missions of the coming years |
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| Authors: | Boris Shustov Mikhail Sachkov Ana I Gómez?de?Castro Klaus Werner Norbert Kappelmann and Alexander Moisheev |
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| Institution: | (1) Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA |
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| Abstract: | Continuous access to the UV domain has been considered of importance to astrophysicists and planetary scientists since the
mid-sixties. However, the future of UV missions for the post-HST era is believed by a significant part of astronomical community
to be less encouraging. We argue that key science problems of the coming years will require further development of UV observational
technologies. Among these hot astrophysical issues are: the search for missing baryons, revealing the nature of astronomical
engines, properties of atmospheres of exoplanets as well as of the planets of the Solar System etc. We give a brief review
of UV-missions both in the past and in the future. We conclude that UV astronomy has a great future but the epoch of very
large and efficient space UV facilities seems to be a prospect for the next decades. As to the current state of the UV instrumentation
we think that this decade will be dominated by the HST and coming World Space Observatory-Ultraviolet (WSO-UV) with a 1.7 m
UV-telescope onboard. The international WSO-UV mission is briefly described. It will allow high resolution/high sensitivity
imaging and high/low resolution spectroscopy from the middle of the decade. |
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