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Galaxies are fundamental cosmic building blocks. They serve as markers to explore the distribution of matter in the Universe on large scales. Active Galaxies and Quasars are particularly important. Nearby objects can be resolved spatially and are allocated to populations of different kinematics, stellar formation history and chemical abundances. Methods of 3D spectroscopy as an integral part of the technology programme of the institute are especially relevant to these objects. Galaxies in our direct cosmic neighbourhood, and in the Milky Way, can be resolved into individual stars. As stellar populations conserve the chemical and kinematic conditions from the time of their birth, the formation history of those galaxies can be reconstructed in impressive detail and a galaxy becomes a cosmic laboratory. This relatively new field of research is also known as “Galactic Archaeology” or “Near-field Cosmology”. Theoretical studies further examine and link these different aspects of extragalactic research with high-resolution numerical simulations. |
