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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

The European Space Agency has selected three candidates [esa.int] for the fifth medium-class Cosmic Vision [wikipedia.org] mission:

A high-energy survey of the early Universe, an infrared observatory to study the formation of stars, planets and galaxies, and a Venus orbiter are to be considered for ESA's fifth medium class mission in its Cosmic Vision science programme, with a planned launch date in 2032.

The three candidates, the Transient High Energy Sky and Early Universe Surveyor (Theseus), the SPace Infrared telescope for Cosmology and Astrophysics (Spica), and the EnVision mission to Venus were selected from 25 proposals put forward by the scientific community.

Theseus, Spica and EnVision will be studied in parallel and a final decision is expected in 2021.

THESEUS [wikipedia.org] would study gamma-ray bursts and x-ray emissions from the early universe, with the goal of making a complete census of gamma-ray bursts from the universe's first billion years.

SPICA [wikipedia.org] would cover longer infrared wavelengths (12 µm "mid-infrared" to 230 µm "far-infrared") than the James Webb Space Telescope (0.6 µm "orange" to 28.5 µm "mid-infrared"), with two orders of magnitude more sensitivity than the Spitzer [wikipedia.org] and Herschel [wikipedia.org] infrared telescopes. The mission would be a collaboration between the ESA and Japan's JAXA.

EnVision [wikipedia.org] would orbit Venus and look for volcanic, tectonic, and atmospheric changes.

Also at EarthSky [earthsky.org].

Previously: ESA Selects ARIEL Exoplanet Survey as a Medium Class Mission [soylentnews.org]

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