Interferometer Evolution: Imaging Terras After Building 'Little' Experiments (INEVITABLE)

摘要

Perhaps one of the most ambitious long-term goals of the astronomical community is to map distant exoplanets. This will require instruments that provide sufficient angular resolution to place multiple pixels across an image of an exoplanet. Many other science programs also require orders of magnitude improvement in angular resolution, and for all of these, single aperture telescopes are impractical. In fact, the array of scientific goals that require high angular resolution makes interferometry inevitable. Here, we discuss some of the long-term science needs, and the implications for future interferometers, and then talk about some possible paths towards these future missions.