The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

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Third Annual GMT Community Science Meeting

08.10.15

Third Annual GMT Community Science Meeting

On October 1-3, 2015, the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization will present the third annual GMT Community Science Meeting. This year's conference, entitled "(re)Solving Galaxies in the Era of Extremely Large Telescopes," will take place in Monterey, CA.

The detailed dynamics, chemical and star formation histories of nearby objects provide a view that is complementary to the average history of the universe that can be stitched together from observing large ensembles of unresolved galaxies. In this conference, we will consider the questions "What can uniquely be learned about dark matter and the physics of galaxy formation from observations of resolved stellar populations?" and "How can we ensure that the next generation of facilities accomplishes this?" Through invited and contributed talks on state-of-the-art, near-field research on dark matter and galaxy formation and evolution, we aim to (i) pinpoint the highest priority open questions and (ii) foster new collaborative connections with an eye on answering these questions with next generation facilities.

Registration is free, and travel support is provided for graduate students and post-doctoral researchers.

Additional details are available on the conference website.

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Projects

2MASS Redshift Survey

Optical and Infrared Astronomy

Galaxies are distributed in long filaments, huge “walls”, and large clusters, which astronomers call the large-scale structure of the cosmos. This structure is a tracer of dark matter, and is a way to understand how the universe has evolved. The 2MASS Redshift Survey (2MRS) is an ambitious map of the galaxies relatively close to the Milky Way. Led by astronomers at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, 2MRS used data collected from the Two Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS), which is an an atlas of the entire sky in infrared light. The completed 2MRS project resulted in a three-dimensional view of the distributions of nearby galaxies, providing a way to understand the structure of the modern universe and distribution of dark matter.

AstroAI

Atomic and Molecular Physics, High Energy Astrophysics, Optical and Infrared Astronomy, Radio and Geoastronomy, Solar, Stellar, and Planetary Sciences, Theoretical Astrophysics, Harvard University Department of Astronomy, Science Education Department, Central Engineering, Director's Office, Chandra X-ray Center, Institute for Theoretical Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics, Institute for Theory and Computation

AstroAI is a institute dedicated to the development of artificial intelligence to enable next generation astrophysics at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. Learn More

Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI)

Optical and Infrared Astronomy

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) consortium is conducting a five-year survey to map the large-scale structure of the Universe over one-third of the sky and 11 billion years of cosmic history, aiming to study the physics of dark energy.

GMACS

Optical and Infrared Astronomy, Central Engineering

GMACS - Moderate Dispersion Optical Spectrograph for the Giant Magellan Telescope is a powerful optical spectrograph that will unlock the power of the Giant Magellan Telescope for research ranging from the formation of stars and planets to cosmology.

For Scientists

James Webb Space Telescope Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES)

Optical and Infrared Astronomy

JADES will use guaranteed time in James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) cycle 1 to produce infrared imaging and spectroscopy of unprecedented depth in the two premier extragalactic deep fields, GOODS-South (CDF-S) and GOODS-North (HDF). These data will reveal the early phases of galaxy formation, probing the rest-frame optical spectroscopy and morphology of galaxies from redshifts 2-3 out to z>10. JADES expects to collect data on about 100,000 galaxies, adding to the extensive legacy of these well-studied fields.

Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)

Optical and Infrared Astronomy, Chandra X-ray Center

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey continues its twenty-year legacy of wide-field optical/infrared imaging and spectroscopy, which has led astronomy into the era of large archives and data science. Harvard and Smithsonian are both full institutional members of the latest epoch of the survey, SDSS-V, which started observations in 2020.

The H3 Stellar Spectroscopic Survey

Optical and Infrared Astronomy, Harvard University Department of Astronomy

The H3 Survey is answering the question: how did the Milky Way Galaxy grow and assemble over cosmic time? To answer this question, a group of scientists at the CfA and the University of Arizona are mapping the outer limits of the Galaxy with >200,000 stars observed with the 6.5m MMT telescope in Arizona.

CASTLES Survey

Optical and Infrared Astronomy

Large galaxies and galaxy clusters sometimes act like lenses. Their gravity distorts the structure of spacetime, magnifying light from more distant objects. This effect, known as strong gravitational lensing, allows astronomers to study galaxies that would ordinarily be too far to see, map the distribution of mass in the galaxies doing the lensing, and measure the expansion rate of the universe. The CASTLeS (CfA-Arizona Space Telescope Lens Survey) is a program jointly managed by the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian and the University of Arizona, which used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to study multiple aspects of strong gravitational lensing as caused by galaxies. Today, CASTLeS team members maintain a catalog of these lenses, updated with new observational data.

CfA Redshift Catalog

Optical and Infrared Astronomy

The universe is expanding, carrying galaxies with it like flotsam on a fast-flowing river. This expansion also stretches the wavelength of light, which astronomers call cosmological redshift, since it pushes visible light colors toward the red end of the spectrum. That means astronomers can determine the distance to far-away galaxies by measuring the redshift of light they produce. The CfA Redshift Catalog (ZCAT), created by researchers at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, is a clearinghouse for historical redshift data from a number of observatories, including the 1.5-Meter Tillinghast Telescope and the MMT Observatory, both CfA-operated telescopes located at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory (FLWO) in Arizona. This data provides a map of galaxies in three dimensions, allowing astronomers to piece together how galaxies group on the largest scales in the universe. ZCAT is an essential resource for data on redshift surveys up to 2008, carrying on the legacy of the original CfA Redshift Surveys conducted in the 1970s and ‘80s.

The Star Formation Reference Survey

Optical and Infrared Astronomy

Astronomers study star formation as a way of understanding our own origins, as well as the structure of galaxies and the evolution of the cosmos as a whole. However, the farther back in time, astronomers often rely on a single measurement type for each galaxy to measure star-formation rates. The Star Formation Reference Survey (SFRS) is designed to improve and assess the reliability of all of these measurements by cataloging nearby star formation, using NASA’s Spitzer Infrared Space Telescope and other observatories. The data produced provides a useful reference data across a wide range of wavelengths in the spectrum of light, which can be applied across surveys of star formation in close-by and distant galaxies. The SFRS observational effort is led by astronomers at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, in collaboration with other researchers around the world.