AI Insight
The DECam Rogue Earths and Mars Survey (DREAMS) has released its first dataset from a three-year survey of the Milky Way's galactic bulge, covering 5 square degrees and cataloging over 59 million stars. The survey uses minute-level observation cadence and reaches depths of z-band magnitude 22, approximately two magnitudes deeper than previous bulge surveys, enabling detection of rapid astronomical phenomena including potential free-floating planets through microlensing, stellar flares, and pulsating stars. Initial analysis of a small pilot sample has already identified one microlensing event, two stellar flares, and 24 new short-period variable stars, suggesting thousands of previously unknown objects may be present in the full dataset.
Why it matters
This survey could significantly advance the detection of free-floating planets—worlds not bound to any star—which would improve our understanding of planet formation and evolution. The high-cadence observations and increased depth also enable discovery of rapid transient events that were previously undetectable, expanding our knowledge of stellar behavior and rare astronomical phenomena.
Understand the Science
arXiv:2605.27364v2 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: The DECam Rogue Earths and Mars Survey (DREAMS), a NOIRLab survey program, has been conducting a three-year survey covering a 5 deg$^2$ area in the Galactic bulge (roughly spanning $-1.2^circ lesssim ell lesssim +2.1^circ$ and $-2.8^circ lesssim b lesssim -0.6^circ$) since 2025 June. Its primary science goal is to detect low-mass free-floating planets through microlensing, while its minute-level cadence ($20-40,mathrm{hr}^{-1}$ in $z$ band and $4-8,mathrm{hr}^{-1}$ in $r$ band) also enables the detection and characterization of rapid phenomena on timescales of minutes to hours such as stellar flares and pulsating stars. The survey reaches a single-exposure depth of $z_{rm AB}sim 22$ mag, about two magnitudes deeper than previous bulge time-domain surveys. We present the data reduction and calibration of the DREAMS observations obtained in 2025 and introduce the first DREAMS data release (DR1). DR1 includes 1,856 $z$-band observations and 325 $r$-band observations for 59,372,789 stars. The DREAMS DR1 catalog contains about twice as many stars as previous catalog covering the same 5 deg$^2$ area. We present DREAMS light curves for a known blue large-amplitude pulsator (BLAP) and a known low-amplitude transiting system to demonstrate the survey’s capabilities. We also perform a pilot search for short-duration variables over about 0.4% of the DR1 sample, identifying one new short microlensing event, two stellar flares, and 24 new short variables. This suggests that DREAMS DR1 may contain hundreds of stellar flares and thousands of previously unknown short variables.
Source: A Minute-Cadence Deep Bulge Survey: First Data Release of DREAMS