2019/07/11 by Melissa Ness, Ness, Melissa, Jonathan Bird +82 · 1 citation
Chemistry · Physics and Astronomy · #Archaeology #Art #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) #Chemistry #FOS: Physical sciences #Geology #History #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #White (mutation) #White paper #astro-ph.GA
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1907.05422
published in arXiv (Cornell University) (Cornell University) · Submitted as an Astro2020 Science White Paper
arxiv created 2019/07/11 · openalex publication_date 2019/07/11 · arxiv updated 2019/07/15 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The next decade affords tremendous opportunity to achieve the goals of Galactic archaeology. That is, to reconstruct the evolutionary narrative of the Milky Way, based on the empirical data that describes its current morphological, dynamical, temporal and chemical structures. Here, we describe a path to achieving this goal. The critical observational objective is a Galaxy-scale, contiguous, comprehensive mapping of the disk's phase space, tracing where the majority of the stellar mass resides. An ensemble of recent, ongoing, and imminent surveys are working to deliver such a transformative stellar map. Once this empirical description of the dust-obscured disk is assembled, we will no longer be operationally limited by the observational data. The primary and significant challenge within stellar astronomy and Galactic archaeology will then be in fully utilizing these data. We outline the next-decade framework for obtaining and then realizing the potential of the data to chart the Galactic disk via its stars. One way to support the investment in the massive data assemblage will be to establish a Galactic Archaeology Consortium across the ensemble of stellar missions. This would reflect a long-term commitment to build and support a network of personnel in a dedicated effort to aggregate, engineer, and transform stellar measurements into a comprehensive perspective of our Galaxy.