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Session 63 - Surveys of Galaxies.
Oral session, Thursday, January 08
Georgetown,
The Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX), a recently selected NASA Small Explorer mission, will map the history and probe the causes of star formation over the redshift range 0 < z < 2, the time that most stars, elements, and galaxy disks were formed. GALEX uses the space ultraviolet to measure redshift (using metal lines and the Lyman break), extinction (using the UV spectral slope), and star formation rate (from UV luminosity). The mission consists of imaging and spectroscopic surveys of various depths and sky coverage, including an all-sky and deep imaging survey in two bands: Far UV (1600Åand Near UV (2500ÅImaging surveys will obtain an angular resolution of 3-5 arcseconds and better than 1 arcsecond positions. Slitless grism spectroscopy provides a highly efficient redshift/star formation rate survey, yielding 100,000 galaxy spectra in one year. The 50 cm telescope, covering 1350-3000Åis simple, cost-effective, efficient, and exploits flight-proven, cutting edge components to provide the deep, broad-band imaging and spectroscopy required. The 28 month mission is performed with a standard 3-axis spacecraft with substantial flight heritage. Our proposed mission plan includes an Associate Investigator Program open to the entire astronomical community.
