The INSPIRE project is an ESO Large Programme (ID: 1104.B- 0370, PI: C. Spiniello) which uses X-Shooter (in UVB, VIS, NIR band) to spectroscopically follow up 52 red ultra Compact Massive Galaxies selected from the KiDS VST ESO Public Survey. The goals of INSPIRE (Spiniello et al. 2021a, Spiniello et al. 2021b) are to obtain the first catalogue of spectroscopically confirmed relics in the redshift range 0.1<z<0.5, bridge the gap between the three local confirmed relics and the high-z red nuggets, and use the final statistic on confirmed relics to put a stringent constraint on the predictions from simulations on the initial burst of star formation in galaxies.
First Data Released from the Project 'Investigating Stellar Population in Relics (INSPIRE)'
Published: 24 Mar 2021
This first release provides 76 1D spectra for 19 galaxies whose observations were completed. For each galaxy, there are four 1D spectra products: two UVB spectra and two VIS. For each object, the two pairs in each arm are extracted using either an aperture that includes 50% of the light or with an optimal extraction procedure on the entire slit. Together with the extracted 1D spectra, the combined UVB+VIS spectra, shifted to the rest frame and smoothed to a final resolution of FWHM = 2.52Å, are also published as ancillary files (these products were used for the stellar population analysis in S21b). The products contain measurements like redshift, stellar age and metallicity from the spectra in dedicated header keywords, which are listed in the detailed release description together with more details about the released products. The 1D spectra for the NIR arms and a comprehensive catalog of the galaxies properties will be included in a future release.
Data are available via the ESO Science Portal or programmatically.