We’re Gonna Need Another Space Telescope

For most of us, today is just Thursday. For astronomers, it’s practically a holy day. Today is an event that comes only once a decade, and it’s of cosmic importance—literally. Today, a special committee has revealed the priorities for the next decade of American astronomy, like a synod giving word from on high. These directives, divined from many deliberations within the astronomy community, have guided the country’s exploration efforts since the 1960s, giving rise to instruments as wondrous as the Hubble Space Telescope. Go forth, the committee says, and discover something new.

Like others before them, the new recommendations will eventually be subject to slightly less harmonious influences—Congress and the White House among them—but on this day, they’re pure: a crisp vision of what the future of scientific discovery could look like. If that vision crystallizes into reality, it could change