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Published 1997 | public
Book Section - Chapter

Infrared Surveys: A Golden Age of Exploration

Abstract

The next decade promises an explosion of information about the infrared sky from wavelengths from 1 μm to 1,000 μm, in the continuum and in spectral lines. Measurements of objects ranging from comets in the Kuiper Belt to newly-forming galaxies will be useful for almost every branch of astrophysics. The number of catalogued infrared sources will increase a thousand-fold from the 600,000 presently known from IRAS. This talk addresses the compelling scientific interest of the infrared and describes why, years from now, astronomers will view this decade as a golden era for the exploration of the infrared sky.

Additional Information

© IAU 1997. It is a pleasure to thank my 2MASS colleagues Mike Skrutskie, Tom Chester, Roc Cutri, Carol Lonsdale, John Huchra, Steve Schneider, and Will Pughe for discussions of 2MASS prototype camera results. I am indebted to Davy Kirkpatrick for his valuable insights into the properties of late type stars in the 2MASS data. George Helou and Martin Harwit graciously described some of the exciting new results from ISO. This work was supported by IPAC which is operated by JPL and Caltech under contract with NASA.

Additional details

Created:
August 22, 2023
Modified:
January 15, 2024