MOONS Science Consortium Meeting 2024
08-10 January 2024, Lisboa, Portugal

This is a closed meeting of the MOONS Consortium Science Team.

MOONS is the Multi-Object Optical and Near-infrared Spectrograph for the VLT. This remarkable instrument combines, for the first time, the 8 m collecting power of the VLT, 1000 fibres, and spectral coverage into the near-infrared. MOONS was designed to enable an unparalleled view of galaxy evolution from our Milky Way, to  the 'cosmic noon' (z~1-3) when the Universe inverted its SFR evolution, up to the highest redshifts. Portugal has been participating in MOONS since its inception, in 2010, in a leadership role. After commissioning and first light, to take place by late 2024, the MOONS consortium will use its 300 nights of Guaranteed Time Observations to realize large surveys covering both the dust-oscured regions of our Galaxy and its satellites providing high quality spectra for millions of stars for chemo-dynamical studies as well as for 0.5 million galaxies at 0.8 < z < 3.0, 2 orders of magnitude larger than current surveys and much beyond what James Webb will be able to achieve. This precisely covers the epoch when the quenching of SF in galaxies took over and the AGN phenomena reaches its peak presence.
 
With the approaching installation of MOONS and the start of operations, the MOONS Consortium team meets once again, focusing on the consolidation of the science cases and the definition of observing strategies for the MOONS Guaranteed Time Observation Surveys:  the MOONS REDdened Milky WAY survey (REDWAY), the MOONS Milky Way Satellites Survey, and the extragalactic survey MOONS Redshift-Intensive Survey Experiment (MOONRISE).

After more than 13 years of design, development and construction, this is a critical time for the project, with the meeting in Lisbon bringing together all the excitement and anticipation of the MOONS team.


Aims of the meeting
During the meeting we will have both plenary and parallel sessions to:

• Assemble MOONS Science Working Groups
• Revise and update the various science cases
• Optimise strategies for MOONS surveys observations
• Discuss ancillary data
• Discuss data reduction and data analysis packages
• Synergies with other surveys and facilities
• Last but not least: Good Team Building !!

LOC
Ciro Pappalardo
Henrique Miranda
Israel Matute
José Afonso (Chair)
Michele Cirasuolo
Oscar Gonzalez
Sandra Homem