A High-Cadence UV-Optical Telescope Suite On The Lunar South Pole

TL;DR

This paper proposes deploying a suite of high-cadence UV-optical telescopes on the lunar south pole during Artemis III to enable continuous, wide-field astronomical observations in UV and optical bands, inaccessible from Earth.

Contribution

It introduces a novel lunar-based telescope suite capable of simultaneous UV and optical wide-field imaging with high cadence for continuous sky monitoring.

Findings

Enables continuous UV-optical sky monitoring from the Moon.

Facilitates studies of exoplanet atmospheres and stellar flares.

Improves understanding of supernovae and nova progenitors.

Abstract

We propose a suite of telescopes be deployed as part of the Artemis III human-crewed expedition to the lunar south pole, able to collect wide-field simultaneous far-ultraviolet (UV), near-UV, and optical band images with a fast cadence (10 seconds) of a single part of the sky for several hours continuously. Wide-field, high-cadence monitoring in the optical regime has provided new scientific breakthroughs in the fields of exoplanets, stellar astrophysics, and astronomical transients. Similar observations cannot be made in the UV from within Earth's atmosphere, but are possible from the Moon's surface. The proposed observations will enable studies of atmospheric escape from close-in giant exoplanets, exoplanet magnetospheres, the physics of stellar flare formation, the impact of stellar flares on exoplanet habitability, the internal stellar structure of hot, compact stars, and the early-time evolution of supernovae and novae to better understand their progenitors and formation mechanisms.