Bibcode
Sheth, Kartik; Armus, Lee; Athanassoula, Lia; Bosma, Albert; Buta, Ron; Capak, Peter; Elmegreen, Bruce; Elmegreen, Debra; Gaditto, Dimitri; Gil de Paz, Armando; Helou, George; Hinz, Joannah; Ho, Luis; Jarrett, Tom; Knapen, Johan; Koda, Jin; Laurikainen, Eija; Madore, Barry; Masters, Karen; Menendez-Delmestre, Karin; Mobasher, Bahram; Munoz-Mateos, Juan Carlos; Ogle, Patrick; Peng, Chien; Regan, Michael; Salo, Heikki; Schinnerer, Eva; Seibert, Mark; Surace, Jason; Zaritsky, Dennis
Bibliographical reference
Spitzer Proposal ID #60007
Advertised on:
12
2008
Citations
3
Refereed citations
3
Description
We propose the ultimate survey of the distribution of stellar structure
in the nearby universe using IRAC's 3.6 and 4.5 micron channels. Deep
observations of the stellar mass distribution, down to 0.1 Msun per sq.
pc for a sample of ~2,300 nearby (d<40Mpc) galaxies, will provide an
unprecedented dataset for studies of structure formation during galaxy
evolution. Such observations will provide answers to some of the most
fundamental questions of our field: how are outer disks and halos
formed? how do galaxy interactions affect the formation and evolution of
galactic structures? which structural parameters govern internal galaxy
evolution? Our large unbiased sample of all Hubble types ranging from
dwarfs to spirals to e llipticals will allow for such structural
studies, not only as a function of stellar mass, but also as a function
of environment, and the output of such an immense survey will serve as a
vital testbed for cosmological simulations predicting the mass
properties of present-day galaxies.