The MESSIER surveyor: unveiling the ultra-low surface brightness universe
Abstract
The MESSIER surveyor is a small mission designed at exploring the very low surface brightness universe. The satellite will drift-scan the entire sky in 6 filters covering the 200-1000 nm range, reaching unprecedented surface brightness levels of 34 and 37 mag arcsec-2 in the optical and UV, respectively. These levels are required to achieve the two main science goals of the mission: to critically test the ΛCDM paradigm of structure formation through (1) the detection and characterisation of ultra-faint dwarf galaxies, which are predicted to be extremely abundant around normal galaxies, but which remain elusive; and (2) tracing the cosmic web, which feeds dark matter and baryons into galactic haloes, and which may contain the reservoir of missing baryons at low redshifts. A large number of science cases, ranging from stellar mass loss episodes to intracluster light through fluctuations in the cosmological UV-optical background radiation are free by-products of the full-sky maps produced.
- Publication:
-
Formation and Evolution of Galaxy Outskirts
- Pub Date:
- March 2017
- DOI:
- 10.1017/S1743921316011388
- Bibcode:
- 2017IAUS..321..199V
- Keywords:
-
- Cosmology;
- dwarf galaxies;
- stellar populations;
- cosmic web;
- intergalactic medium;
- diffuse radiation;
- space instrumentation