The Space Astrophysics Landscape 2019 (LPI Contrib. No. 2135) 5033.pdf THE ORIGINS SPACE TELESCOPE M. Meixner1 and A. Cooray2 and the Origins Study Team3, 1STScI/JHU, 3700 San Martin Dr., Baltimore, MD 21218,
[email protected], 2UC Irvine, 4186 Frederick Reines Hall, Irvine, CA, 92697,
[email protected], 3study website: https://asd.gsfc.nasa.gov/firs/team/, https://origins.ipac.caltech.edu/page/team Introduction: Half of the light emitted by stars, plan- Mid-Infrared Spectrometer and Camera (MISC) – ets, and galaxies over the lifetime of the Universe Transit spectrometer (TRA, 2.8-20 µm) [5]. emerges in the infrared. The Origins Space Telescope (Origins) will access this information-rich spectral Origins Science: Origins enables revolutionary scien- region to uncover the crucial missing pieces of our tific discoveries in many areas including: cosmic history. Origins is a community-led, NASA- How does the Universe work? Origins will supported mission concept study in preparation for the probe our earliest cosmic origins by chart- 2020 Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey. ing the rise of dust and metals in galaxies Origins Baseline Mission Concept: The Origins over cosmic time, and determine how the Space Telescope [1, 2] and its suite of instruments coevolution of star formation and supermassive black will utilize next-generation detectors and operate with holes leads to the diversity in galaxies today. spectral resolving power in steps from ~3 to 3x105 How did we get here? Origins will follow over wavelengths from 2.8 to 590 µm, the telescope the trail of water from the birth of the and instruments will be cryocooled to 4.5 K, and the planet-forming disk to the assembly of pre- light collecting area, 25 m2, will match that of JWST.