The Universe of Digital Sky Surveys

The Universe of Digital Sky Surveys PDF Author: Nicola R. Napolitano
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319193309
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
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.

The Universe of Digital Sky Surveys

The Universe of Digital Sky Surveys PDF Author: Nicola R. Napolitano
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319193309
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

Big Data in Astronomy

Big Data in Astronomy PDF Author: Linghe Kong
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 012819085X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Book Description
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)

Mapping the Heavens

Mapping the Heavens PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
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.

A Grand and Bold Thing

A Grand and Bold Thing PDF Author: Ann K. Finkbeiner
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439196478
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
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.

The Origin and Evolution of Galaxies

The Origin and Evolution of Galaxies PDF Author: J.T. Jones
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400979398
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Book Description
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.

New Horizons from Multi-Wavelength Sky Surveys

New Horizons from Multi-Wavelength Sky Surveys PDF Author: Brian J. McLean
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400914857
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 508

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Book Description
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.

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Acquisition System, and Early Results

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Acquisition System, and Early Results PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
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.

The Cosmic Web

The Cosmic Web PDF Author: J. Richard Gott
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691181179
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Semi-autobiographical discussion of astronomy and astronomers, and history of astronomy and cosmology.--

Astrometry With Digital Sky Surveys: From SDSS to LSST.

Astrometry With Digital Sky Surveys: From SDSS to LSST. PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 8

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Book Description
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.

30-Second Universe

30-Second Universe PDF Author: CHARLES. MASTERS LUI (KAREN. SALUR, SEVIL.)
Publisher:
ISBN: 1782408509
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 163

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Book Description
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.