As a post-doc member of the JWST/NIRSpec Guaranteed Time Observer (GTO) team and one of the builders of the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES), I participated in extensive scientific and technical preparations for the ambitious NIRSpec science that JWST would go on to produce, starting several years in advance of its much-delayed launch. Most notably, I independently solved a long- and outstanding MOS observation optimization problem with a novel, universally optimal analytical algorithm that helped pave the way to ground-breaking JADES science discoveries; assisted in the commissioning of NIRSpec at the JWST Mission Operations Center at Space Telescope Science Institute (STScl); and guides the associated eMPT software that is available to the NIRSpec user community as an alternative to the STScI MSA Planning tool (MPT) for designing their NIRSpec MOS-mode observations.
NASA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)
Near-Infrared Spectrometer
Credit: ChatGPT
Multi-object Spectroscopic (MOS)
observation planning and optimization
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb), Leah Hustak (STScI), Brant Robertson (UC Santa Cruz), S. Tacchella (Cambridge), E. Curtis-Lake (UOH), S. Carniani (Scuola Normale Superiore), JADES Collaboration
The IPA algorithm guiding the eMPT software was crucial in determining the complex NIRSpec observation strategy of the JADES Deep galaxy survey in the GOODS-South field, as it was designed to capture the maximum number of highest-priority targets in a single observation. This helped lead to the discovery of the most distant galaxies in the Universe as of 2023.
Credit: JADES collaboration