New Eyes for Galaxies Investigation

Abstract

The observational data for the extragalactic research are evolved across this century. While the first studies on galaxies were essentially based on images and spectra taken in the optical waveband and registered after hours of work at the telescope on glass photographic plates, today we receive pre-reduced multiwavelength images and spectra directly on our computers. The work of astronomers is changed completely with the technological progress. Only 30 years ago, 4-5 photographic images of galaxies, or a few spectra, were the best one can hope to get after a night of hard work at the telescope. Today, space and ground-based telescopes with big diameters and field of view are pointed toward the sky every night, collecting gigabytes of data for thousand of galaxies, that we bring with us in our laptop computers. In the previous chapters the aim of our interviews was to clarify whether this exponential increase of observational data available for the extragalactic research has been accompanied by a parallel significant growth in our understanding of galaxies. In this chapter on the other hand, we try to offer an overview of the future scheduled or planned projects for the extragalactic research. The discussion will therefore address the most important space and ground based telescopes that have been imaged for the next future. The aim is that of clarify what are the main open questions in extragalactic astronomy and what efforts will be put forward to find their solutions. The Chapter starts with the Gaia mission that is currently mapping the stellar component of the MilkyWay (MW) with unprecedented accuracy in the astrometric positions, but it is also expected to provide an incredibly large database for galaxies and quasars positions. From these interviews we will gain a useful insight about the enormous range of byproducts of the MW studies for the extragalactic research. We then address our discussion toward the most attractive telescope projects from space and from the ground. In turn, we will focus our interviews on the JamesWebb Space Telescope (JWST), the post-Hubble largest NASA project, and the next IR, UV, X-ray and Gamma-ray space missions of the west countries for the years to come. We will later explore the future view of galaxies coming from the ground based telescopes, like the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). The chapter will then offers a panoramic sketch of the extragalactic projects engaged in the east countries. Finally, we discuss the contribution of radio astronomy to the new galaxy view, examining the contribution of the Atacama Large Millimiter Array (ALMA) and the results expected from the Square Kilometer Array (SKA).