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

• Main Authors: Fleming, Scott W., Barclay, Thomas, Bell, Keaton J., Bianchi, Luciana, Brasseur, C. E., Hermes, JJ, Loyd, R. O. Parke, Million, Chase, Osten, Rachel, Rest, Armin, Ridden-Harper, Ryan, Schlieder, Joshua, Shkolnik, Evgenya L., Szkody, Paula, Tucker, Brad E., Tucker, Michael A., Youngblood, Allison
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: arXiv 2020
• Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics astro-ph.IM; Earth and Planetary Astrophysics astro-ph.EP; Solar and Stellar Astrophysics astro-ph.SR; FOS Physical sciences; South Pole; South pole
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2010.00007; https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.00007

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. : 2 pages, white paper submitted to the Artemis III Science Definition Team