This Report Could Make or Break the Next 30 Years of U.S. Astronomy

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August 19, 2021

Dear Reader,   This week, we're thinking about the next few decades of astronomy. Our lead story details the sky-high stakes of Astro2020, an authoritative and soon-to-be-released "Decadal Survey" report meant to set the course for future U.S. stargazing. Will the forefront of astronomy in the mid-21st century lie in observations of supermassive black holes, or in studies of light from the first moments after the big bang, in the search for life on worlds beyond our solar system, or in some other realm of inquiry of which we now can scarcely dream? The forthcoming Astro2020 report will help decide. Elsewhere, we have articles about Earth's distant future, mathematical infinities, and the legacy of astronomer Vera Rubin. Enjoy!

Lee Billings, Senior Editor, Space & Physics @LeeBillings

Astronomy This Report Could Make or Break the Next 30 Years of U.S. Astronomy A battle for the future of American stargazing is about to begin—and the stakes are sky high By Lee Billings

Mathematics A Deep Math Dive into Why Some Infinities Are Bigger Than Others The size of certain infinite sets has been a mystery. Now, it turns out, each one is different than the next, and they can all be ordered by size By Martin Goldstern,Jakob Kellner

Behavior The Art of Pondering Earth's Distant Future Stretching the mind across time can help us become more responsible planetary stewards and foster empathy across generations By Vincent Ialenti

Astronomy Astronomer Vera Rubin Taught Me about Dark Matter--and about How to Live Life The groundbreaking scientist ushered in a revolution in how we think about the universe. She also lived by a set of principles that made her an exceptional human being By Ashley Jean Yeager

Cosmology When Physicists Follow their Guts Fred Hoyle and George Gamow were brilliant iconoclasts who reached opposite conclusions about the expanding universe (for the record, Gamow was right) By Paul Halpern

Extraterrestrial Life When Will We Hear from Extraterrestrials? Project Galileo could make that happen sooner rather than later By Avi Loeb

Planetary Science NASA Probe Finds Higher Chance of Asteroid Bennu Striking Earth Using data from the OSIRIS-REx mission, scientists calculated slightly increased (but still low) odds the space rock will collide with our planet in the 2100s By Meghan Bartels,SPACE.com

Planetary Science Brown Dwarfs Could Reveal Secrets of Planet and Star Formation They’re not quite stars and not quite planets but can help us understand both By Katelyn Allers

Planetary Science Crumbly Mars Rock, Not Hardware Flaws, Scuttled Perseverance's First Sample Attempt After an alarming failure, the rover is set to continue its mission to retrieve specimens for eventual return to Earth By Robin George Andrews

Astronomy Chinese Astronomers Eye Tibetan Plateau Site for Observatory Project Years of weather monitoring suggest a high-altitude locale in Qinghai Province could host future telescopes By Meghan Bartels,SPACE.com

FROM THE STORE Scientific American Volume 325, Issue 3

QUOTE OF THE DAY "We are right now on a knife-edge. I do believe this Decadal is existential for astronomy in the United States." John O'Meara, chief scientist of the W. M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea in Hawaii

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FROM THE ARCHIVE Dark Matter's Last Stand A new experiment could catch invisible particles that previous detectors have not By Clara Moskowitz | April 2021

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