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Conference: Towards the Habitable Worlds Observatory: Visionary Science and Transformational Technology, held July 28–31, 2025
"Inspired by the vision of searching for signatures of life on planets outside of our solar system, and by the transformative capability such a telescope would have for a wide range of astrophysics, the priority recommendation in the frontier category for space is a large (~6 m diameter) IR/O/UV telescope with high-contrast (10-10) imaging and spectroscopy. This is an ambitious mission, of a scale comparable to the HST and JWST space telescopes. It is also one that will be revolutionary, and that worldwide only NASA is positioned to lead." (Text source: Decadal Survey on Astronomy and Astrophysics 2020 [Astro2020])
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Ultraviolet wavelengths are important to answer many questions in astrophysics. In addition to being sensitive to optical and near-infrared, Habitable Worlds Observatory will be sensitive to ultraviolet light.