Untitled - Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de l'Observatoire de Grenoble

emphasis on the chemistry of planetary atmospheres, with an explicit goal to be involved in exoplanetary
atmospheres by 2010. While LPG is concerned on the short term with solar system objects (mostly Titan,
in relation with the Cassini-Huygens mission), LAOG (Astromol and/or FOST) will have discussions
about possible common scientific goals for exoplanets in the same time frame, in preparation for Darwin.
• Other space missions ? Over the long term, LAOG may also consider a greater instrumental involvement
in telescopes that can only be put in space, while keeping within its scientific priorities: high-energies,
and submm astronomy. The projects that one can consider would be mostly with CNES or/and ESA.
In the high-energy, hard X-ray domain, the Sherpas team is already involved (for AGNs and compact
binaries) in the scientific group around Simbol-X, a two-satellite proposal led by CEA Saclay (which is
competing, along with Pégase, for a CNES-funded pre-Phase A study), but no instrumental development
is currently foreseen at LAOG. In the 2015 timeframe, i.e., the same as Darwin, the XEUS project, successor
to XMM, is the leading high-energy project within ESA. LAOG might be more involved in the project
(which has strong support from space laboratories in France), but again likely not at the hardware level.
In the submm domain of interest mainly for Astromol, Herschel, to be launched in 2007, will require many
years of scientific exploitation. Its only currently identified long-term successor in ESPRIT, but with no
date set for launch. On the other hand, there are already also here some thoughts about Antarctica (the
most interesting domain is the THz range). Here again, there are no current plans for a LAOG hardware
involvement, but it has to stay alert to possible evolutions.
1.7 Conclusions: A vision for the post-2010 future of LAOG
By 2010, because of the important scientific results it has already obtained, and its successful bids to build new
major instruments for the VLT, it can reasonably be expected that LAOG will have the following ambitious
objectives for the next decade. But it has to grow again to accomplish them...
• The VLT-PF and, hopefully, VITRUV will be completed and start operations at the VLT. This means
that in the mean time, most of LAOG’s scientific results will be obtained with existing instruments,
mostly at the VLT (with instruments it contributed to build or other Paranal instruments), and at CFH
(exploitation of WIRCAM). A much better knowledge of the evolution of circumstellar disks, over a time
span of ∼ 1 to ∼ 100 Myr, is expected from instruments like NAOS or AMBER. Along with work on the
evolution of early solar system going on elsewhere (and at LPG in particular), the hope is that by 2010 we
will know as much (or as little ?) about planet formation as we know about star formation today. Several
hundreds of exoplanets, and possibly several tens of exoplanetary systems will be known, some containing
Earth-like planets. Even though the VLT-PF has the main goal of imaging Jupiter-sized planets close to
the host star, the recent images of the brown dwarf-exoplanet system 2M1207 demonstrate that several
systems will certainly be imaged before the VLT-PF becomes available. On the other hand, studies will
have matured at LAOG to contribute to building some kind of ELTs and/or single telescopes and possibly
an interferometer in Antarctica, as well as contributing to the Darwin recombiner. The participation of
LAOG to all these ventures will ensure activities of LAOG in the field of star and planet formation well
into the next decade. But such ambitious goals require a significant increase in manpower in the coming
years: 3-4 researchers for FOST, 3-5 engineers and technicians for GRIL and the Technical group.
• The Herschel mission will be operational right into the present prospective, and thus, by opening a new
window in the universe, will constitute the newest branch of submillimeter astronomy, with a rich harvest
in spectroscopy and key results on star formation and early evolution. On the ground, IRAM telesscopes
will play a pivotal role, at least until ALMA starts operations (hopefully in 2012), along with other existing
(sub)millimeter telescopes elsewhere. Already a significant part of the astronomical activities related to
star formation is dedicated to the search for prebiotic molecules, as part of a worldwide effort to develop
exobiology. As explained in the prededing sections, the Astromol group is particularly well placed to
pursue these lines of research. However, the task is daunting, and the Astromol team has to grow, and
grow fast, since a few of its members will have retired by 2010. Hiring, and/or attracting at least 2-3
permanent researchers in the coming years is absolutely vital for Astromol.
• A (tentative !) picture appears from combining three factors towards 2010: (i) development of exoplanet
research in the FOST team; (ii) developments in the search for prebiotic molecules, and also in theoretical
chemistry in the Astromol team; (iii) the planned developments in the chemistry of planetary and
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