Research Byte

Published in the RSAA Lunations
Vol1 Issue13 1–28 February 2021

Galaxies have undergone significant morphological and kinematic evolution over the passt 8 billion years, during which time the rotationally-supported systems that appear to dominate the massive galaxy population at z > 1 give way to pressure supported early-type galaxies by z = 0. Understanding when and how such galaxy-scale transformations occur is critical to our overall picture of galaxy evolution, however current IFS surveys are limited to probing only the relatively nearby Universe.

To address this shortcoming, the MAGPI survey is using the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) on the ESO VLT to take deep images and spectra of galaxies during the Universe’s “middle ages”, roughly 3-4 billion years in the past. MUSE is unique in the world of integral field spectrographs, having both a wide 1 sq. arcminute field and high spatial sampling (200 milliarcseconds). MAGPI is using MUSE in conjunction with its laser guide star system GALACSI to obtain resolved images and stellar spectra that can be directly compared to the SAMI survey, facilitating an evolutionary study of resolved galaxy properties.

MAGPI started taking data in late 2019, but was interrupted by telescope closures for the majority of 2020. However as of November 2020, and thanks to the substantial efforts of staff at the European Southern Observatories (ESO), MAGPI is taking data again, and is on track to collect more than 2 million spectra in 2021.

The most recent milestone for the survey was completion of the first survey paper, which was submitted to PASA towards the end of 2020, and showcases both the exquisite quality of the data-rich MUSE observations, as well as theoretical insights demonstrating the unique constrains that MAGPI provides to the current generation of cosmological hydrodynamical simulations. 

More information about the MAGPI project, team, or science goals can be found on the survey webpage (magpisurvey.org).

Trevor Mendel

_{Image: Left panel shows the surface brightness for one of the primary MAGPI galaxies, while the middle and right panels show the ionised gas and stellar motions, respectively, measured from the MUSE data cubes. These cutouts represent approximately 3% of the area in a single MUSE pointing.}