Abstract
We present the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) Survey, a 77.2 hr Director’s Discretionary Early Release Science Program. CEERS demonstrates, tests, and validates efficient extragalactic surveys using coordinated, overlapping parallel observations with the JWST instrument suite, including NIRCam and MIRI imaging, NIRSpec low- (R ∼ 100) and medium- (R ∼ 1000) resolution spectroscopy, and NIRCam slitless grism (R ∼ 1500) spectroscopy. CEERS targets the Hubble Space Telescope-observed region of the Extended Groth Strip field, supported by a rich set of multiwavelength data. CEERS facilitated immediate community science in both of the extragalactic core JWST science drivers “First Light” and “Galaxy Assembly,” including: (1) the discovery and characterization of large samples of galaxies at z ≳ 10 from ∼90 arcmin2 of NIRCam imaging, constraining their abundance and physical nature; (2) deep spectra of >1000 galaxies, including dozens of galaxies at 6 < z < 10, enabling redshift measurements and constraints on the physical conditions of star formation and black hole growth via line diagnostics; (3) quantifying the first bulge, bar, and disk structures at z > 3; and (4) characterizing galaxy mid-IR emission with MIRI to study dust-obscured star formation and supermassive black hole growth at z ∼ 1-3. As a legacy product for the community, the CEERS team has provided several data releases, accompanied by detailed notes on the data reduction procedures and notebooks to aid in reproducibility. In addition to an overview of the survey and the quality of the data, we provide science highlights from the first two years with CEERS data.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | L4 |
| Journal | Astrophysical Journal Letters |
| Volume | 983 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Early online date | 3 Apr 2025 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 10 Apr 2025 |
Acknowledgements
We acknowledge that the location where this work took place, the University of Texas at Austin, sits on indigenous land. The Tonkawa lived in central Texas and the Comanche and Apache moved through this area. We pay our respects to all the American Indian and Indigenous Peoples and communities who have been or have become a part of these lands and territories in Texas, on this piece of Turtle Island.We thank Alyssa Pagan (STScI) for the creation of the color image used in Figure 1, and the NIRSpec instrument team for their help with the IPS simulations. We thank the engineers and scientists at NASA/ESA/CSA and STScI for building, launching, and operating this fabulous observatory, and thank STScI for their long-standing support of the ERS program. We thank the scientists at STScI for creating, planning, and implementing the ERS program, including Ken Sembach, Janice Lee, Neill Reid, and Amaya Moro-Martin. We also thank the community members for their efforts in doing outstanding science with these data. The authors acknowledge the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC; http://www.tacc.utexas.edu) at the University of Texas at Austin for providing HPC and visualization resources that have contributed to the research results reported within this Letter.
EERS spectroscopy are anticipated.
Funding
We acknowledge support from NASA through the STScI ERS award JWST-ERS-1345, JWST-GO-2750, JWST-AR-2687, and JWST-AR-1721. D.B. and M.H.-C. thank the Programme National de Cosmologie et Galaxies and CNES for their support. R.A. acknowledges support from the Severo Ochoa grant CEX2021-001131-S funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Space and Planetary Science