COSMOS Catalog Workshop at the Institut d'astrophysique de Paris

The COSMOS Catalog Workshop at the Institut d'astrophysique de Paris took place in Paris from January 15 - 17, 2020. The Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS) is a collection of observations spanning from the X-ray to the radio and everywhere in-between focused over a patch of sky in the constellation Sextans, which is fittingly, the Sextant. The goals of COSMOS are nothing short of a complete understanding of the nature of the evolution of galaxies, their connection to dark matter, and the eventual fate of our universe. The backbone to answering these questions is the principal catalog which contains all of the galaxies that we can detect. For COSMOS, a catalog is released every few years so that other astronomers in the collaboration and beyond can use the latest data in their analysis. Historically, the catalogs have been extremely high profile and much anticipated by the community.

During this special 3-day workshop, DAWN Director Sune Toft, DAWN Fellow Iary Davidson, and PhD Fellow John Weaver worked with colleagues from the Institut d'astrophysique de Paris to prepare the COSMOS2020 catalog. One of the defining features of this catalog will be the inclusion of the last ever infrared observations from the prodigious Spitzer Space Telescope, which has now been deactivated indefinitely. This infrared data is crucial, as it will enable researchers to detect never before seen galaxies in the early universe. The catalog is scheduled to be released later this year.