Southern Sources with EXES/SOFIA: A Community Chat
Arielle Moullet NRAO
The Echelon-Cross- Echelle Spectrograph (EXES) instrument onboard SOFIA (4.5 – 28.3 μm, R=5000-100000) typically operates during ~ 20 flights per observing cycle, all departing from the NASA Palmdale base. These flights can access a large section of the observing sky, but cannot reach regions with declinations below -36 degrees (and in practice, below -24 degrees for faint sources), which require flights departing from a southern hemisphere base. For example, a project geared towards trying to study water towards Ophiuchus or anything targeting the Galactic Center.
The SOFIA Science Center is soliciting input from the astrophysics community at large to evaluate the potential scientific impact of southern observations with EXES in the next few years. In particular, we want to understand which EXES data from southern sources could leverage the interpretation of MIRI/Webb observations (which cover the same wavelength range with lower spectral resolution), and complement atmosphere-impacted TEXES and CRIRES observations. This webinar on Tuesday, 30 March, from 8:30 am to 10:00 am (Pacific time), is an opportunity for anyone to present ideas about high-impact EXES observations of southern sources, which will be used as inputs to the development of a long-term southern deployment strategy, supporting Cycle 10 and beyond.
Registration is free but necessary in order to join the webinar. To help us prepare for a productive workshop, please consider sharing your suggestions for observations on this collaborative document before the meeting — please send a request for editing permissions. If you would prefer to share your input outside of a public forum, we encourage you to contact the EXES team.