Science goals
WST Operations
The WST science drivers encompass a very broad range of areas, across the full electromagnetic spectrum and beyond. The WST will be pivotal, in synergy with other major astronomical facilities in the 2040s, to tackle some of the key open questions in modern astrophysics:
Is the accelerated expansion of the Universe due to an unknown form of energy or to a modification of General Relativity on large scales?
What signatures of new physics from inflation and the early Universe are present in the clustering of high redshift galaxies?
How do black holes form and grow over cosmic time?
What is the interplay between dark, stellar, and gaseous material in galaxies, and how does primordial and metal-enriched gas flow in and out of galaxies at various scales during different epochs?
What is the detailed formation and accretion history of the Milky Way, its populations, and its satellites?
What is the origin of the chemical elements that are crucial to trace the evolution of galaxies?
How do the environment conditions affect the formation and evolution of stars and planets?
What are the extreme physical conditions that govern transient events (explosions, eruptions, and disruptions)?
What multiple messengers (e.g. gravitational waves, photons) tell us on the nature of compact objects and the extreme physics at play during their merging?
Synergies
The WST will fill a critical gap in the global astronomical infrastructure of the 2040s.
Next section
History of the project
The WST was conceived to transform our understanding of the Universe through large-scale spectroscopy.
Addressing outstanding science
Issue #1 The WST Chronicle