4MOST proposals submitted to ESO

by Joe Liske on 2020-12-15

On 15 December 2020 the 4MOST consortium and the ESO community successfully submitted their proposals for ESO Public Surveys to be carried out with 4MOST during its first five years of operations. While the consortium submitted 10 proposals for its guaranteed time (corresponding to the 10 Consortium Surveys), the community submitted 18 proposals to compete for the "open" time available to the community.

The proposal submission marks the culmination of many months of preparation. The community proposals were invited by ESO following a pre-selection based on Letters of Intent previously submitted by the community in February 2020. While honing their own proposals over the past months, the 4MOST Science Team also supported their colleagues in the ESO community to get ready and plan for the exciting scientific opportunities offered by 4MOST, e.g. by organising two workshops. The proposal submission thus represents yet another major milestone for the 4MOST project and the Principal Investigator, Roelof de Jong, would like to thank everyone involved for their hard work and strong commitment.

ESO's Public Survey Panel (PSP) will now review all proposals received and judge the community proposals in terms of their complementarity and possible synergies with the Consortium Surveys before recommending the final, joint 4MOST Survey Programme.