Johannes Staguhn

From the calendar

One-Hour Talk

The PRobe far-Infrared Mission for Astrophysics (PRIMA) is a cold 1.8 meter space telescope designed to address key science objectives identified in Astro2020 and to open up a significant discovery space for the astronomical community. Beyond the Probes, a far-IR flagship, which could also include MIR exo-planet characterization capabilities, is also envisioned in the Astro2020 report.

The achievable sensitivity of these missions will be enabled by advanced superconducting detector technologies plus cryogenic cooling of the observatory, potentially resulting in up to three orders of magnitude improvement in sensitivity and mapping speeds up to more than a million times faster than those achieved with past missions. This advancement in capabilities will allow the astronomical community to address a wide range of scientific questions with unprecedented observational capabilities, ranging from tracing the astrochemical signatures of planet formation (within and outside of our own Solar System), measuring the formation and buildup of galaxies, heavy elements, and interstellar dust from the first galaxies to today, and probing the co-evolution of galaxies and their supermassive black holes across cosmic time, among many more. The flagship mission or a potential dedicated Explorer mission would additionally enable the characterization of the atmospheres of exoplanets in the habitable zone around M-stars with unprecedented sensitivities.

I will provide an overview of the scientific potential of future FIR space missions in general, followed by an introduction to the scientific capabilities of the PRIMA Probe concept.