Transformational Astrophysics And Exoplanet Science With Habitable Worlds Observatory’s High Resolution Imager

Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) will be NASA’s flagship space telescope of the 2040s, designed to search for life on other planets and to transform broad areas of astrophysics.

NASA are seeking international partners, and the UK is well-placed to lead the design and construction of its imaging camera – which is likely to produce the mission’s most visible public impact.

Early participation in the mission would return investment to UK industry, and bring generational leadership for the UK in space science, space technology, and astrophysics.

Vincent Van Eylen, Richard Massey, Saeeda Awan, Jo Bartlett, Louisa Bradley, Andrei Bubutanu, Kan Chen, Andrew Coates, Mark Cropper, Ross Dobson, Fabiola Antonietta Gerosa, Emery Grahill-Bland, Leah Grant, Daisuke Kawata, Tom Kennedy, Minjae Kim, Adriana Adelina Mihailescu, Jan-Peter Muller, Georgios Nicolaou, Mathew Page, Paola Pinilla, Louisa Preston, Ted Pyne, Hamish Reid, Santiago Velez Salazar, Jason L. Sanders, Giorgio Savini, Ralph Schoenrich, George Seabroke, Alan Smith, Philip J. Smith, Nicolas Tessore, Marina Ventikos, Esa Vilenius, Francesca Waines, Silvia Zane, James Betts, Sownak Bose, Cyril Borgsom, Shaun Cole, Jessica E. Doppel, Vincent Eke, Carlos Frenk, Leo W. H. Fung, Qiuhan He, Mathilde Jauzac, Owen Jessop, Zane Deon Lentz, Gavin Leroy, Simon Morris, Yuan Ren, Jurgen Schmoll, Ray Sharples, Fionagh Thomson, Maximilian von Wietersheim-Kramsta, Kai Wang, Stephane V. Werner, Subhajit Sarkar, Jacob Kegerreis, James Kirk, Subhanjoy Mohanty, John Southworth, John Philip Stott, Ashley King, James W. Nightingale, David Rosario, Paola Tiranti, Edward Gillen, Cynthia S. K. Ho, Christopher Watson, Andrzej Fludra, Chris Pearson, Yun-Hang Cho, Yu Tao, Joanna Barstow, James Bowen, Chris Castelli, Chiaki Crews, Angaraj Duara, Mark Fox-Powell, David Hall, Carole Haswell, Kit-Hung Mark Lee, Joan Requena, Anabel Romero, Jesper Skottfelt, Konstantin Stefanov, Olivia Jones, Sean McGee, Annelies Mortier, Graham P. Smith, Amalie Stokholm, Amaury Triaud, Becky Alexis-Martin, Malcolm Bremer, Katy L. Chubb, Joshua Ford, Ben Maughan, Daniel Valentine, Hannah Wakeford et al. (71 additional authors not shown)

Comments: White paper submitted to the UK Space Agency’s initiative “UK Space Frontiers 2035” this https URL
Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
Cite as: arXiv:2512.16416 [astro-ph.IM] (or arXiv:2512.16416v1 [astro-ph.IM] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2512.16416
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Submission history
From: Richard Massey
[v1] Thu, 18 Dec 2025 11:14:02 UTC (1,852 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.16416

Astrobiology, exoplanet,