The NIRSpec GTO program

In return for the provision of the NIRSpec spectrograph, the European Space Agency (ESA) has received an allocation of 900 hours of JWST guaranteed time (wall-clock time including direct and indirect overheads). This program is managed by the ESA JWST project scientist and is being prepared by the NIRSpec guaranteed-time observer (GTO) team.

On this site, you will find a brief description of each element of the NIRSpec GTO program.

The NIRSpec GTO program is built around one large core program focused on the theme of galaxy formation and evolution, and a set of 5 small and 2 medium programs covering a much wider range of astrophysical topics. Although scientific excellence has been the primary criterion when designing this GTO program, we have also made sure that in the course of these observations, the NIRSpec GTO team will probe the key modes and observation strategies / regimes of the NIRSpec instrument, with the aim to provide early feedback on the data quality and processing steps to the scientific operation center (STScI) and to the community. 

OVERVIEW

Program

Lead(s)

Duration (cycle 1)

The physics of galaxy assembly – the NIRSpec GTO spectroscopic surveys

708,38 hours

 

JADES

M. Rieke & P. Ferruit

Joint collaboration between the NIRCam and NIRSpec GTO teams

365.85 hours

combined to ~426 hours from NIRCam for a total of more than 790 hours!

 

WIDE

B. Husemann & M. Maseda

105.96 hours

 

IFS

S. Arribas & R. Maiolino

236.57 hours

Cosmic reionization and metal enrichment from quasar spectroscopy

C. Willott & P. Jakobsen

33.25 hours

Resolved structure and kinematics of the nuclear regions of nearby galaxies

T. Böker

18.04 hours

Transiting exoplanet characterization with JWST/NIRSpec

S. Birkmann & J. Valenti

48.91 hours

Direct spectroscopy of an exoplanet with the JWST/NIRSpec IFU

S. Birkmann

6.02 hours

Star formation in the local group

G. de Marchi

14.97 hours

The physics of brown dwarfs

C. Alves de Oliveira

17.01 hours

Surface composition of mid-sized TNOs: searching for ammonia

A. Guilbert-Lepoutre

8.94 hours

Total for cycle 1

855.52 hours

Coordinated Parallels

When possible and scientifically valuable, we are planning to obtain NIRCam images in parallel to our NIRSpec multi-object spectroscopy (MOS) exposures.

Note that for GO proposals, coordinated parallels with NIRSpec multi-object spectroscopy and MIRI imaging is also possible.

For the list of supported coordinated parallel instrument combinations, see the JDOX page here.

What's new?

02 June 2020 - Various updates

  • Updated the links to GTO-related sites at the bottom right of the site front page.
  • Updated the (brief) descriptions of the programs when necessary.

OUR JWST COSMOS sites:

JWST Home

NIRSpec Home

MIRI Home