Galaxy morphology across cosmic time: environment, evolution, and the MICADO breakthrough скачать в хорошем качестве

Galaxy morphology across cosmic time: environment, evolution, and the MICADO breakthrough

Benedetta Vulcani (INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova): Galaxy morphology encodes key information about how galaxies form and evolve. In the local Universe, morphological trends with stellar mass and environment are now well established, providing strong constraints on the physical processes driving galaxy transformation. Extending these studies to earlier cosmic epochs is essential to trace their evolution, but remains challenging due to the increasingly uncertain definition of both environment and morphology at high redshift. In this talk, I will review recent observational results on the interplay between galaxy morphology, mass, and environment from the nearby Universe to intermediate redshift, highlighting current limitations and open questions. I will then discuss how MICADO, the first-light imager of the Extremely Large Telescope, will deliver unprecedented spatial resolution and sensitivity, enabling detailed morphological classifications and the characterization of fine structural features in distant galaxies. By combining existing surveys with forthcoming ELT/MICADO observations, we will be able to robustly connect morphological evolution to environmental processes across cosmic time, opening a new window on the physical mechanisms shaping galaxies.