Summary of the DUNE Mission Concept

TL;DR

DUNE is a proposed wide-field imaging mission aimed at studying dark energy, dark matter, galaxy evolution, and exoplanets through an all-sky survey with a 1.2m telescope, forming a valuable astronomical legacy.

Contribution

This paper introduces the DUNE mission concept, detailing its scientific goals, instrumentation, and its role within the Euclid merged mission for cosmology and astrophysics.

Findings

Designed for weak gravitational lensing and cosmological probes

All-sky survey in visible and NIR bands with 1.2m telescope

Potential to create a unique astronomical legacy

Abstract

The Dark UNiverse Explorer (DUNE) is a wide-field imaging mission concept whose primary goal is the study of dark energy and dark matter with unprecedented precision. To this end, DUNE is optimised for weak gravitational lensing, and also uses complementary cosmolo gical probes, such as baryonic oscillations, the integrated Sachs-Wolf effect, a nd cluster counts. Immediate additional goals concern the evolution of galaxies, to be studied with groundbreaking statistics, the detailed structure of the Milky Way and nearby galaxies, and the demographics of Earth-mass planets. DUNE is a medium class mission consisting of a 1.2m telescope designed to carry out an all-sky survey in one visible and three NIR bands (1deg$^2$ field-of-view) which will form a unique legacy for astronomy. DUNE has been selected jointly with SPACE for an ESA Assessment phase which has led to the Euclid merged mission concept.