FIGURE 2‐14 A possible pathway is shown here toward making the sugar molecule glycoaldehyde, which was detected by the NRAO Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in the Sagittarius B2 cloud <strong>of</strong> gas and dust. Material expelled from the vicinity <strong>of</strong> forming stars collides with a nearby molecular cloud (such as Sagittarius B2), generating shock waves. <strong>The</strong> heating associated with the shock allows chemical reactions to occur among atoms and small molecules that are embedded on the surfaces and in the interiors <strong>of</strong> small grains in the cloud. <strong>The</strong> resulting larger molecules that are formed, such as glycoaldehyde, are ejected from the grains thanks also to the shock waves, and end up in the surrounding gas where they can be detected. <strong>The</strong> red atoms are oxygen, the grey carbon and the yellow hydrogen. Credit: Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF. PREPUBLICATION COPY—SUBJECT TO FURTHER EDITORIAL CORRECTION 2-34
3 Partnership in <strong>Astronomy</strong> and <strong>Astrophysics</strong>: Collaboration, Cooperation, Coordination Fifty years ago, just before the first decadal survey in astronomy (the Whitford report), astronomy and astrophysics was practiced very differently than it is today. Virtually all telescopes were in private hands and viewed the sky in just the visible part <strong>of</strong> the spectrum using photographic plates or early photomultiplier tubes to record data; radio astronomy was still a new technique; the great potential <strong>of</strong> space was only beginning to be discussed. <strong>The</strong> U.S. dominated astronomical research. Federal support was small and existed only at NSF; NASA was soon to begin its race to the Moon and consider its first astrophysics missions. <strong>The</strong> frontiers were large and inviting. Many <strong>of</strong> the most phenomenal discoveries <strong>of</strong> the century lay ahead. Neutron stars, black holes, quasars, exoplanets, dark matter, dark energy, and the cosmic microwave background were yet to be found. <strong>Astronomy</strong> was a somewhat insular field and its connection to physics, principally through atomic and nuclear physics, was just starting to grow. Since that time, astronomy has been in a period <strong>of</strong> revolutionary discovery—from stars and planets to black holes and cosmology—and is poised for dramatic advances in our understanding <strong>of</strong> the universe and the laws that govern it. <strong>The</strong>re are strong and growing connections to other fields, including physics, computer science, medicine, chemistry, and biology. Few today would refer to astronomy as an island in the world <strong>of</strong> science. Advances in technology have propelled much <strong>of</strong> the change. Digital devices with hundreds <strong>of</strong> millions <strong>of</strong> pixels have enabled wide-field images and massively multiplexed spectros<strong>copy</strong> at optical and infrared wavelengths. Radio technology has progressed to the point where sensitive, high-resolution images and spectra are routinely available. A panoply <strong>of</strong> detectors has provided astronomers with microwave, infrared, ultraviolet, X-ray, gamma-ray, cosmic-ray, neutrino, and gravitational radiation eyes—allowing the universe to be observed in a rich variety <strong>of</strong> ways. Many <strong>of</strong> these new windows on the universe were made possible by the ability to place increasingly sophisticated observatories in space—from the pioneering COBE, IRAS, Copernicus, UHURU, SAS-3, and Compton-GRO to WMAP, Spitzer, Hubble, Chandra, Fermi, and Swift today. Over this same period, computing power has increased by 10 orders <strong>of</strong> magnitude in both processing speed and storage, racing through the petascale, and the exponential growth <strong>of</strong> digital bandwidth has revolutionized communications and the way science is done. Together, these techniques have provided new views that both solve old puzzles and uncover new surprises. <strong>The</strong> sociology <strong>of</strong> astronomy has also changed. <strong>The</strong> field is more collaborative, more international, and more interdisciplinary. <strong>The</strong> style <strong>of</strong> carrying out research is different. Multi-wavelength approaches are necessary for many important problems. Observational data <strong>of</strong>ten come via e-mail or the Web, from space and ground-based telescopes alike. <strong>The</strong> secondary use <strong>of</strong> data from archives, especially surveys, has grown in importance and in some cases even dominates the impact <strong>of</strong> a facility. In addition, breakthroughs are still made with great, imaginative leaps from our youngest scientific minds. Because <strong>of</strong> the strong and important connections <strong>of</strong> astronomy to other disciplines, federal funding now involves five divisions at NSF—<strong>Astronomy</strong> (AST), Physics (PHY), Office <strong>of</strong> Polar Programs (OPP), Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences (AGS), and the Office <strong>of</strong> Cyberinfrastructure (OCI)—as well as the <strong>Astrophysics</strong>, Heliophysics and Planetary Science Divisions at NASA, the Offices <strong>of</strong> High-Energy Physics (HEP) and Nuclear Physics (NP) at the <strong>Department</strong> <strong>of</strong> Energy, and the Smithsonian Institution. At the same time that federal support has grown and diversified, private funding <strong>of</strong> large ground-based observatories has increased as well. Optimizing the federal investment in astronomy must take account <strong>of</strong> the changing scientific, sociological, and funding landscape. This presents new challenges—from data acquisition and access to interagency and international coordination. This chapter addresses the interfaces between different PREPUBLICATION COPY—SUBJECT TO FURTHER EDITORIAL CORRECTION 3-1
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