Download or read book The Universe of Digital Sky Surveys written by Nicola R. Napolitano and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-05-16 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These are the proceedings of a meeting in honour of Massimo Capaccioli at the occasion of his 70th birthday. The conference aimed at summarizing the results from the main current and past digital sky survey projects and at discussing how these can be used to inspire ongoing projects and better plan the future ones. Over the last decades, digital sky surveys performed with dedicated telescopes and finely-tuned wide-field cameras, have revolutionized astronomy. They have become the main tool to investigate the nearby and far away universe, thus providing new insights in the understanding of the galaxy structure and assembly across time, the dark components of the universe, as well as the history of our own galaxy. They have also opened the time domain leading to a new understanding of the transient phenomena in the universe. By providing public access to top quality data, digital surveys have also changed the everyday practice of astronomers who have become less dependent on direct access to large observing facilities. The full scientific exploitation of these surveys has also triggered significant advances in both space and ground based technology and in the field of multi-object spectroscopy. The various sections of this book are devoted to different relevant aspects of astrophysics in the era of digital sky surveys and include both review and shorter, more focused contributions.
Download or read book Big Data in Astronomy written by Linghe Kong and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2020-06-13 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Big Data in Radio Astronomy: Scientific Data Processing for Advanced Radio Telescopes provides the latest research developments in big data methods and techniques for radio astronomy. Providing examples from such projects as the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), the world's largest radio telescope that generates over an Exabyte of data every day, the book offers solutions for coping with the challenges and opportunities presented by the exponential growth of astronomical data. Presenting state-of-the-art results and research, this book is a timely reference for both practitioners and researchers working in radio astronomy, as well as students looking for a basic understanding of big data in astronomy. - Bridges the gap between radio astronomy and computer science - Includes coverage of the observation lifecycle as well as data collection, processing and analysis - Presents state-of-the-art research and techniques in big data related to radio astronomy - Utilizes real-world examples, such as Square Kilometer Array (SKA) and Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST)
Download or read book Mapping the Heavens written by and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This talk will provide an overview of results from the on-going Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), the most ambitious mapping of the Universe yet undertaken, focusing on those with implications for cosmology. It will include a virtual fly-through of the survey that reveals the 3-dimensional large-scale structure of the galaxy distribution. Recent measurements of this large-scale structure, in combination with observations of the cosmic microwave background, have provided independent evidence for a Universe dominated by dark matter and dark energy as well as insights into how galaxies and larger-scale structures formed. I will also describe early results from the SDSS Supernova Survey, which aims to provide more precise constraints on the nature of dark energy. Future planned surveys from the ground and from space will build on these foundations to probe the history of the cosmic expansion--and thereby the dark energy--with even greater precision.
Download or read book A Grand and Bold Thing written by Ann K. Finkbeiner and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-08-17 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: LATE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, what had been a fevered pace of discovery in astronomy for many years had slowed. The Hubble Space Telescope continued to produce an astonishing array of images, but the study of the universe was still fractured into domains: measuring the universe’s expansion rate, the evolution of galaxies in the early universe, the life and death of stars, the search for extrasolar planets, the quest to understand the nature of the elusive dark matter. So little was understood, still, about so many of the most fundamental questions, foremost among them: What was the overall structure of the universe? Why had stars formed into galaxies, and galaxies into massive clusters? What was needed, thought visionary astronomer Jim Gunn, recently awarded the National Medal of Science, was a massive survey of the sky, a kind of new map of the universe that would be so rich in detail and cover such a wide swath of space, be so grand and bold, that it would allow astronomers to see the big picture in a whole new way. So was born the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a remarkable undertaking bringing together hundreds of astronomers and launching a new era of supercharged astronomical discovery, an era of “e-science” that has taken astronomy from the lonely mountaintop observatory to the touch of your fingertips. Critically acclaimed science writer Ann Finkbeiner tells the inside story of the Sloan and how it is revolutionizing astronomy. The Sloan stitched together images of deep space taken over the course of five years, providing a remarkably detailed, three-dimensional map of a vast territory of the universe, all digitized and downloadable for easy searching on a personal computer, and available not only to professional astronomers but to the public as well. Bringing together for the first time images of many millions of galaxies—including the massive structure known as the Sloan Great Wall of galaxies, never seen before—the Sloan is allowing astronomers and armchair enthusiasts alike to watch the universe grow up, providing so many discoveries at such a fast pace that, as one astronomer said, it’s like drinking out of a fire hose. They are watching galaxies forming and galaxies merging with other galaxies, seeing streams of stars swirling out from galaxies, and forming a new understanding of how the smooth soup of matter that emerged from the Big Bang evolved into the universe as we know it. Ann Finkbeiner brings the excitement and the extraordinary potential of this new era of astronomy vividly to life and allows all readers to understand how they, too, can become part of the discovery process. A Grand and Bold Thing is vital reading for all.
Download or read book The Cosmic Web written by J. Richard Gott and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-26 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Semi-autobiographical discussion of astronomy and astronomers, and history of astronomy and cosmology.--
Download or read book The Origin and Evolution of Galaxies written by J.T. Jones and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Origin and Evolution of Galaxies is the outstanding problem of modern cosmology. Fortunately. we have a firm cosmological framework on which to base our theories (the hot big bang) and recently there has been substantial progress in providing observations which potentially can constrain these theories. The problem of galaxy formation is. as a consequence. one involving many diverse branches of physics and astrophysics. It has been the aim of the school. and this compendium of lectures and seminars. to bring together these diverse aspects at a level enabling research workers to understand what is going on in other corners of the subject and to see how progress in each area impinges on the others. We are grateful to the contributors to this volume for allowing us considerable editorial license with their articles. We have attempted to provide a representative sample of the talks that were given at the school besides the texts of the invited lecturers. It is regrettable that for reasons of space we have had to leave out a number of other contributions.
Download or read book The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Acquisition System and Early Results written by and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Sloan Digital Sky Survey will systematically map one- quarter of the sky, producing detailed images in five color bands and determining the positions and absolute bright- nesses of more than 100 million celestial objects. It will also measure the redshifts of a million selected galaxies and of 100,000 quasars, yielding a three-dimensional map of the universe through a volume one hundred times larger than that explored to date. The SDSS collaboration is currently in the process of commissioning the 2.5-meter survey tele- scope. We describe the data acquisition system used to record the survey data. This system consists of twelve sin- gle board computers and their associated interfaces to the camera and spectrograph CCD electronics, to tape drives, and to online video displays, distributed among several VME crates. A central UNIX computer connected to the VME crates via a vertical bus adapter coordinates the sys- tem and provides the interface to telescope operations. We briefly discuss results from the observing runs to date and plans for the archiving and distribution of data.
Download or read book New Horizons from Multi Wavelength Sky Surveys written by Brian J. McLean and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Large area sky surveys are now a reality in the radio, IR, optical and X-ray passbands. In the next few years, new surveys using optical, UV and IR mosaic cameras with high throughput digital detectors will expand the dynamic range and accuracy of photometry and astrometry of objects over a significant fraction of the entire sky. Parallel X-ray and radio surveys over the same areas will produce astronomical image and spectroscopic databases of unprecedented size and quality. The combined data sets will provide significant new constraints on star formation, stellar dynamics, Galactic structure, the evolution of galaxies and large scale structure, as well as new opportunities to identify rare objects in the solar system and the Galaxy. Large area surveys have formidable data acquisition, processing, archiving, and data distribution demands and this meeting provided a forum for sharing experiences amongst workers specializing in different wavebands as well as discussing how multiband observations can reveal fundamental relationships in our understanding of the Universe.
Download or read book 30 Second Universe written by CHARLES. MASTERS LUI (KAREN. SALUR, SEVIL.) and published by . This book was released on 2019-10 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The universe literally encompasses everything we were, are and will be, everything we knew, know and can know. When we decide to understand the universe as a whole, new truths come to light, and unexpected perspectives illuminate our take on life. 30-Second Universe explains all the tantalising concepts, principles and theories that make up our knowledge - the Higgs particle, gluons, quarks, the multiverse, how certainty itself can be uncertain, and of course, where our world came from, and where we're going and what will happen in the end - and it explains these astrophysical answers succinctly, each entry taking only 30 seconds to read, with further exploration flagged, and key scientists noted. This one small book sheds light on the biggest ideas, concepts and discoveries in life, in the universe, in everything.
Download or read book Astrometry With Digital Sky Surveys From SDSS to LSST written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 8 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Major advances in our understanding of the Universe have historically come from dramatic improvements in our ability to accurately measure astronomical quantities. The astrometric observations obtained by modern digital sky surveys are enabling unprecedentedly massive and robust studies of the kinematics of the Milky Way. For example, the astrometric data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), together with half a century old astrometry from the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS), have enabled the construction of a catalog that includes absolute proper motions as accurate as 3 mas/year for about 20 million stars brighter than V=20, and for 80,000 spectroscopically confirmed quasars which provide exquisite error assessment. We discuss here several ongoing studies of Milky Way kinematics based on this catalog. The upcoming next-generation surveys will maintain this revolutionary progress. For example, we show using realistic simulations that the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will measure proper motions accurate to 1 mas/year to a limit 4 magnitude fainter than possible with SDSS and POSS catalogs, or with the Gaia survey. LSST will also obtain geometric parallaxes with accuracy similar to Gaia's at its faint end (0.3 mas at V=20), and extend them to V=24 with an accuracy of 3 mas. We discuss the impact that these LSST measurements will have on studies of the Milky Way kinematics, and potential synergies with the Gaia survey.
Download or read book New Worlds New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2011-02-04 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Driven by discoveries, and enabled by leaps in technology and imagination, our understanding of the universe has changed dramatically during the course of the last few decades. The fields of astronomy and astrophysics are making new connections to physics, chemistry, biology, and computer science. Based on a broad and comprehensive survey of scientific opportunities, infrastructure, and organization in a national and international context, New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics outlines a plan for ground- and space- based astronomy and astrophysics for the decade of the 2010's. Realizing these scientific opportunities is contingent upon maintaining and strengthening the foundations of the research enterprise including technological development, theory, computation and data handling, laboratory experiments, and human resources. New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics proposes enhancing innovative but moderate-cost programs in space and on the ground that will enable the community to respond rapidly and flexibly to new scientific discoveries. The book recommends beginning construction on survey telescopes in space and on the ground to investigate the nature of dark energy, as well as the next generation of large ground-based giant optical telescopes and a new class of space-based gravitational observatory to observe the merging of distant black holes and precisely test theories of gravity. New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics recommends a balanced and executable program that will support research surrounding the most profound questions about the cosmos. The discoveries ahead will facilitate the search for habitable planets, shed light on dark energy and dark matter, and aid our understanding of the history of the universe and how the earliest stars and galaxies formed. The book is a useful resource for agencies supporting the field of astronomy and astrophysics, the Congressional committees with jurisdiction over those agencies, the scientific community, and the public.
Download or read book The Discovery of Cosmic Voids written by Laird A. Thompson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-10 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The large-scale structure of the Universe is dominated by vast voids with galaxies clustered in knots, sheets, and filaments, forming a great 'cosmic web'. In this personal account of the major astronomical developments leading to this discovery, we learn from Laird A. Thompson, a key protagonist, how the first 3D maps of galaxies were created. Using non-mathematical language, he introduces the standard model of cosmology before explaining how and why ideas about cosmic voids evolved, referencing the original maps, reproduced here. His account tells of the competing teams of observers, racing to publish their results, the theorists trying to build or update their models to explain them, and the subsequent large-scale survey efforts that continue to the present day. This is a well-documented account of the birth of a major pillar of modern cosmology, and a useful case study of the trials surrounding how this scientific discovery became accepted.
Download or read book Managing Astronomy Research Data Data Practices in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and Large Synoptic Survey Telescope Projects written by Ashley Elizabeth Sands and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ground-based astronomy sky surveys are massive, decades-long investments in scientific data collection. Stakeholders expect these datasets to retain scientific value well beyond the lifetime of the sky survey. However, the necessary investments in knowledge infrastructures for managing sky survey data are not yet in place to ensure the long-term management and exploitation of these scientific data. How are sky survey data perceived and managed, by whom, and what are the implications for the infrastructures necessary to sustain the long-term value of data? This dissertation used semi-structured interviews, document analysis, and ethnographic fieldwork to explain how perspectives on data management differ among the stakeholder populations of two major sky surveys: the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). Perspectives on sky survey data cluster into two categories: "data as a process" is where data are perceived in terms of the practices and contexts surrounding data production; and "data as a product" is where data are perceived as objective representations of reality, divorced from their production context. Analysis reveals these different perspectives result from stakeholders' differing data management responsibilities throughout the research life cycle, as reflected through their professional role, career stage, and level of astronomy education. These results were used to construct a data management life cycle model for ground-based astronomy sky surveys. Stakeholders involved in day-to-day construction, operations, and processing activities perceive data as a process because they are intimately familiar with how the data are produced. In contrast, sky survey leaders perceive data as a product due to their roles as liaisons to external stakeholders. During the proposal stage, leaders must present the data as objective and accurate to secure financial support; during data release, leaders must attract researchers to trust the data for scientific use. The tendency of sky survey leaders to regard data as a product leads them, and other stakeholders, to undervalue workforces, funding, and the other knowledge infrastructures necessary to sustain the value of scientific data. Planning for long-term data management must include stakeholders who view data as a process as well as those who view data as a product.
Download or read book Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems X written by Frank Roderic Harnden and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 616 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Flight Through the Universe by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey written by and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This animated flight through the universe was made by Miguel Aragon of Johns Hopkins University with Mark Subbarao of the Adler Planetarium and Alex Szalay of Johns Hopkins. There are close to 400,000 galaxies in the animation, with images of the actual galaxies in these positions (or in some cases their near cousins in type) derived from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 7. Vast as this slice of the universe seems, its most distant reach is to redshift 0.1, corresponding to roughly 1.3 billion light years from Earth. SDSS Data Release 9 from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), led by Berkeley Lab scientists, includes spectroscopic data for well over half a million galaxies at redshifts up to 0.8 -- roughly 7 billion light years distant -- and over a hundred thousand quasars to redshift 3.0 and beyond.
Download or read book The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Status and Prospects written by and published by . This book was released on with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is a project to definitively map[pi] steradians of the local Universe. An array of CCD detectors used in drift-scan mode will digitally image the sky in five passbands to a limiting magnitude of r[prime][approximately] 23. Selected from the imaging survey, 10[sup 6] galaxies and 10[sup 5] quasars will be observed spectroscopically. I describe the current status of the survey, which is due to begin observations early in 1997, and its prospects for constraining models for dark matter in the Universe. 8 refs., 7 figs.
Download or read book The Sloan Digital Sky Survey s Use of the Web written by and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 7 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Sloan Digital Sky Survey is a world-wide collaboration in astrophysics with contributors from around the United States, Italy, and Japan. Collaborators need to have easy access to current information about the project and the on-going software development. The World Wide Web (WWW) and HTML (HyperText Markup Language meet this need admirably. Our use of the Web can be thought of as providing access to three distinct types of information: (1) the infrastructure of the project, (2) the documentation of actual software used throughout the project, and (3) access to Survey databases. The layout of Web pages is not meant to allow the public to easily surf. Rather, the pages are laid out to permit collaborators to find information efficiently. In keeping with this goal, there is less emphasis on glitz and more on content.
