DARK ENERGY AND EXOPLANETS: NASA'S WFIRST MISSION and CHARACTERIZING NEW WORLDS: NASA'Z HabEX MISSION

Jason Rhodes will discuss what will happen after the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) launches next year, NASA’s next flagship astronomy mission will be the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST). When it launches in the mid 2020s, WFIRST will revolutionize the study of dark energy and exoplanets.

Alina Kiesling describes that every ten years the US astronomy community conducts a ‘Decadal Survey’ to set priorities for the coming decade. NASA is preparing 4 flagship astronomy mission concepts for the 2020 Decadal Survey. One of these, the Habitable Exoplanet Imaging Mission (HabEx) will allow us to find and characterize other ‘pale blue dots’, planets like Earth that might harbor life.