Science with MORFEO-SHARP
Objectives and Ambitions
MORFEO-SHARP with an angular resolution three times higher than NIRSpec on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a wavelength coverage extending to 2.45 μm and multiplexing capabilities both as MOS and multi-IFU, will provide spectroscopic observations at an unprecedented high angular and spectral resolution in the near-IR. MORFEO-SHARP will allow us to go beyond the observational limits currently fixed by NIRSpec at JWST, and to explore the new paths that JWST will have opened. MORFEO-SHARP will take up the baton left by JWST when its mission ends.
Science and SHARP design
The concept of SHARP and its design were originally motivated by extragalactic science mainly focused on the formation and evolution of galaxies, supermassive black holes and structures, and the distant Universe. However, SHARP opens a wide astrophysical parameter space and we expect it to be decisive in a broad range of research fields as demonstrated by some examples of the Science Cases reported below.
As motivated by Science cases, observations of galaxies at increasingly high redshift require a wavelength range extending to the near-IR limit that can be efficiently reached from the ground, an angular resolution suited to spatially resolve spectral properties over angular scales <40 mas and multiple spectra at a time. These features result in the Main Requirements of SHARP.