The GLASS-JWST Early Release Science Program. I. Survey Design and Release Plans

The GLASS-JWST Early Release Science (hereafter GLASS-JWST-ERS) Program will obtain and make publicly available the deepest extragalactic data of the ERS campaign. It is primarily designed to address two key science questions, namely, what sources ionized the universe and when? and how do baryons cycle through galaxies?, while also enabling a broad variety of first look scientific investigations. In primary mode, it will obtain NIRISS and NIRSpec spectroscopy of galaxies lensed by the foreground Hubble Frontier Field cluster, Abell 2744. In parallel, it will use NIRCam to observe two fields that are offset from the cluster center, where lensing magnification is negligible, and which can thus be effectively considered blank fields. In order to prepare the community for access to this unprecedented data, we describe the scientific rationale, the survey design (including target selection and observational setups), and present pre-commissioning estimates of the expected sensitivity. In addition, we describe the planned public releases of high-level data products, for use by the wider astronomical community.

Automated summary

The GLASS-JWST Early Release Science program aims to acquire and share the deepest extragalactic data, addressing key questions about ionization in the Universe and baryon cycling in galaxies. It also facilitates various scientific investigations and will release high-level data products for the wider astronomical community to use.