Reflections on the discovery space for a large ultraviolet-visible telescope: inputs from the European-led EUVO exercise

Abstract

The solutions to a number of astrophysical problems require access to the ultraviolet, optical, and infrared from space-based facilities, with capabilities beyond those available with Hubble Space Telescope or James Webb Space Telescope. A large ultraviolet-optical-infrared telescope will need to have a large collecting area and milliarcsecond angular resolution capabilities plus highly efficient instruments, providing a revolutionary enhancement in capability. During 2013, the European astronomical community was involved in an exercise to outline the big science that could be achieved with such a facility; the proposal was called EUVO (as per European Ultraviolet-Visible Observatory). Inspired by that work, we describe a proposal on future science and instrumentation to be carried out with a 10-m class telescope. (C) 2016 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE).