Overview

We are working to build the world's most ambitious infrared survey of the entire night's sky: the aim is to repeatedly image the sky to a level 100 - 500 times deeper than the 2MASS survey, uncovering the most distant objects known to mankind and revealing the transient universe as never seen before. Gathering around a common set of scientific goals, we hope to foster a stronger connection between the Mexican and US science and technology communities as well as raise the educational  awareness of astronomy to a broad community.

More Details

In the mountains of Baja California, at the San Pedro Mártir (SPM) Observatory, a 6.5 meter telescope will be constructed over the next several years and the survey will begin with the largest infrared camera ever constructed. The YJHKs survey, based upon a camera with ~124 2k x 2k IR arrays and a field of view of 0.8 degrees, is expected to begin in 2017 and last for 4 years. Data will be made readily available to the UC and Mexican astronomy communities through co-located data centers.

Science Objectives

• Discover and Study the Missing Stellar Mass in the Local Solar Neighborhood
• Find the Most Distant Quasars: Dozens beyond z > 8 
• Construct the Infrared Distance Ladder through Transients:
• Find and Follow over 1000 Type Ia Supernova to z < 0.15
• Calibrate the Cepheid period luminosity relation in the infrared
• Type IIP Supernova Cosmology
• Provide Deep and Quick Follow-up to Gravitational Wave and Neutrino Events
• Find Earth-mass planets around T, L, M-dwarf stars