Galaxies in 3D across the Universe

Abstract

WISH is a new space science mission concept whose primary goal is to study the first galaxies in the early universe. The primary science goal of the WISH mission is to push the high-redshift frontier beyond the epoch of reionization by utilizing its unique imaging and spectrocopic capabilities and the dedicated survey strategy. WISH will be a 1.5m telescope equipped with a 1000 arcmin² wide-field Near-IR camera to conduct unique ultra-deep and wide-area sky imaging surveys in the wavelength range 1 - 5 μm. A spectroscopic mode (Integral-Field Unit) in the same Near-IR range and with a field of view of 0.5 - 1 arcmin and a spectral resolution R = 1000 is also planned. The difference between WISH and EUCLID in terms of wavelength range explains why the former concentrates on the reionization period while the latter focuses on the universe at z < 3. WISH and JWST feature different instantaneous fields of view and are therefore also very complementary.