Toulouse, France
24-27 September

LOFT, the Large Observatory For X-ray Timing, is one of the four ESA Cosmic vision mission candidates competing for a launch opportunity at the start of 2020s. LOFT will answer fundamental questions about the motion of matter orbiting close to the event horizon of a black hole, and the state of matter in neutron stars. Following the successful first science meeting, the LOFT Consortium is pleased to invite the Astrophysics community at large to discover the progress achieved in the instruments’ design and provide an essential contribution to finalizing of the LOFT Yellow Book.

LOFT, the Large Observatory For X-ray Timing, is a newly proposed space mission that will answer fundamental questions about the motion of matter orbiting close to the event horizon of a black hole, and the state of matter in neutron stars. LOFT was recently selected by ESA as one of the four M3 mission candidates that will compete for a launch opportunity at the start of the 2020s.

During this assessment phase we need to make a full study of the exciting science that could be done with such a telescope, and solidify the relationship between the science goals and the technical requirements.

To do this, and to solicit full involvement from the wider astronomical community in this opportunity, there will be a LOFT Science meeting on October 26-28 this year at the Science Park in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. There will be a mix of invited reviews, contributed talks, and discussion sessions, to ensure that innovative science ideas get full exposure. To register, and for more details, please see the meeting website:

http://www.isdc.unige.ch/loft/index.php/meetings/loft-science-meeting

We look forward to seeing you in Amsterdam in October!
Anna Watts, on behalf of the international SOC