Stanford professor. Astronomer: exoplanets, instruments, astropolicy. Principal investigator for the Gemini Planet Imager. He/him. Black lives matter.
Nov 4, 2021 • 13 tweets • 2 min read
Thread 4: Major NSF/ground recommendations to accomplish the #astro2020 vision:
The first ground recommendation is a US Extremely Large Telescope program with the US taking a share totaling 50% in the Thirty Meter and Giant Magellan Telescopes, targeting 25% of each
1. An integrated Great Observatories Mission and Technology Maturation Program. Future missions are big. Before they can formally commence, the technology and mission architecture must be mature.
Mature enough that realistic costs and schedules and feasibility can be assessed. This proposed process ties technology to specific missions and architectures; evolving a mission as technology matures.
Nov 4, 2021 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
Thread 2: process. The report is work of 145 committee and panel members, plus 21 amazing @theNASEM staff (who I love unconditionally). Working with these people was a privilege.
The input of the community was critical, from the incredibly detailed Flagship mission studies to 867 white papers. Every white paper, every page of every study, was read by one ore more committee and panel members.
Nov 4, 2021 • 15 tweets • 4 min read
First, I wanted to highlight with the major NASA recommendation of the Decadal Survey: a 6-m class telescope capable of imaging Earthlike worlds orbiting sunlike stars. @theNASEM#astro2020.
JWST, and the Extremely Large groundbased telescopes, can study potentially habitable planets huddled close to the coolest stars - a critical capability - but a world like our own Earth is beyond the reach of anything but a dedicated space telescope
Nov 4, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
#astro2020 schedule reminder: the report text will be available at 11 AM eastern time, 8 AM pacific time. Followed by a live briefing by the committee chairs at 2 PM eastern / 11 AM pacific. nationalacademies.org/our-work/decad…
Much less excitingly, I'll do an overly-long-summary here on twitter.
Nov 30, 2019 • 19 tweets • 4 min read
This is literally - and I do not use that word lightly - the most insanely wrong climate-change-denial thought I have ever read
Let’s do some Actual Math (tm). The nearest star is about 4.4 light years, or 1.3 parsecs, away. That’s (rounding a little) about 280,000 times further from Earth than the sun.
Nov 14, 2019 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
2019: #proximab wins the #exocup, generating a surge of scientific and popular interest and funding
2023: Thermal imaging cameras determine that the planet is present
2027: ELT spectroscopy confirms that it is habitable
2030: Breakthrough foundation launches lasersail probes
2036: A fleet of femtosatellites sweeps through the Proxima system at 25% of the speed of light, swarming through a system inhabited by a peaceful, advanced civilization
2037: The terrified Proximans plan their revenge.
2045: Proximans lanuch retaliatory Von Neuman Probe
