STScI Announces the JWST Cycle 5 General Observer Program
STScI announces the selection of 254 JWST General Observer (GO) programs for Cycle 5. This follows the review of 2,855 submitted proposals by the JWST Telescope Allocation Committee, which made recommendations to the STScI Director, who approved the final selection. The selection is balanced across a wide range of science topics with a distribution that matches the submitted proposals. Additional information about the approved programs is now available.
Cycle 5 includes 225 GO programs for 8,009 hours of JWST prime time (including 3 Treasury, 9 Joint JWST-HST, and 1 Joint JWST-XMM programs), as well as 3 Survey, 13 Regular Archival, 8 Theory Archival, 3 Legacy Archival, 1 Pure Parallel, and 2 Calibration GO programs. This establishes the science program for JWST’s fifth year of operations, reflecting the aspirations of the worldwide community of observers. The selected proposals were prepared by 2,333 unique investigators from 37 countries, including 44 U.S. states plus D.C., 18 ESA member states, and 7 Canadian provinces. Forty-six percent of the selected proposals are led by first-time JWST Principal Investigators.
The Cycle 5 GO prime time is distributed as follows:
- 105 Very Small programs (≤ 20 hours) for 1,116 hours
- 70 Small (> 20 and ≤ 50 hours) for 2,409 hours
- 40 Medium (> 50 and ≤ 130 hours) for 3,054 hours
- 10 Large (>130 hours) for 1,430 hours
In terms of instrument use, the fractions of prime (prime+coordinated) hours are: MIRI 25.1% (24.8%), NIRCam 13.3% (18.2%), NIRISS 6.9% (7.1%), NIRSpec 54.7% (49.6%); 20% (27%) is imaging and 80% (73%) is spectroscopy. Cycle 5 includes Large and Treasury programs that will provide the community with immediate access to more than 2,275 hours of JWST data.
The selection process for the General Observer programs represents a tremendous effort by the 7,363 investigators from 849 institutions who submitted a record number of proposals, and the 552 members of the Telescope Allocation Committee. Our deepest appreciation to all involved in a peer-review process that ensures the strongest scientific program for JWST.
Astrobiology, Astronomy, exoplanet,
