Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO
MaNGA is a component of the Fourth-Generation Sloan Digital Sky Survey whose goal is to map the detailed composition and kinematic structure of nearby galaxies. MaNGA uses integral field unit (IFU) spectroscopy to measure spectra for hundreds of points within each galaxy. MaNGA’s goal is to understand the “life history” of present-day galaxies from imprinted clues of their birth and assembly, through their ongoing growth via star formation and merging, to their death from quenching at late times.
The primary MaNGA data products are composed of 3-D calibrated data cubes produced by the DRP[89] and 2-D maps of derived quantities, such as emission line fluxes, gas and stellar kinematics, and stellar population properties, produced by the DAP[149] from those cubes. The 3-D data cubes are constructed from a few tens to a few thousands of individual spectra that have been combined onto a regular grid. The 2-D maps of derived quantities are constructed by analyzing individual or binned groups of spaxels and constructing maps of the quantities at the relevant on-sky location.