new frontiers in astronomy
DESCRIPTION
Talk given at the Library of Congress on 2008-12-18TRANSCRIPT
New Frontiers in Astronomy Dr Alberto ContiSpace Telescope Science Institute
April 2006
Optimize the science from community-led Optimize the science from community-led astrophysics missions and projects. astrophysics missions and projects.
Develop, nurture, and share innovations in Develop, nurture, and share innovations in
space astronomy science operations. space astronomy science operations.
Collaborate on the next generation of Collaborate on the next generation of space astrophysics programs.space astrophysics programs.
Community Missions Office
Astronomy Project TimelineAstronomy Project TimelineSTScI Project and Mission ActivitySTScI Project and Mission Activity
HST
Spitzer
Chandra
FUSE
GALEX
GLAST
Kepler
WMAP
JWST
SWIFT
Beyond Einstein
XMM
SOFIA
INTEGRAL
Ares V Flights
Herschel - Planck
WISE
NVO Operations
ALMA
TMT
LSST
PANSTARRS
NVO Development
SIM? TPF?
SDSSVLT & Gemini Observatories
Start date and Probable DurationStart date and Probable Duration2000 2005 2010 2015 2020
Community Missions
MicrosoftWWT
MASTKepler
ComputerScience Biology Economics
Medicine Government Astronomy
Massive amounts of information
New Science Paradigm for Astronomy
Astronomy is changing
Old days: photographic plates
1960: astronomical goes digital
Instruments collect 100 GB/night
Detectors follow Moore’s Law
Total data doubles every 2 years
Growth over 25 years is a factor of 30 in glass, 3000 in pixels
?
Challenges for the Future
Space is big!For one picture you need
a 2 Trillion pixels camera!
Monochrome : 4 Terabytes or
5% of the Library of Congress
Color: 100 Terabytes or
the 21% more than the entire Library of Congress
Time: 10 Petabytesor
120 times the entireLibrary of Congress
New analysis & visualization tools are required
Adapt or Perish
Google Earth, Microsoft Virtual Earth have revolutionized the way we look at our planet.
We proposed a new synergistic approach to the challenge of bringing the universe to our desktops
Old Public Data Access
•Many observatories
• Individual interfacesMission A
Mission B
Mission C
Observatory X
Observatory Y
New Science Paradigm:First Iteration
•Data Standards
•Protocols }Mission A
Mission B
Mission C
Observatory X
Observatory Y
New Science Paradigm:Second Iteration
Data Standards, Protocols, Mining Tools
Mission A
Mission B
Mission C
Observatory X
Observatory Y
Metadata
New Science Paradigm Problems
• Technology is trumping science
• Many distributed services are unreliable
• Little idea of what users are doing and why
• Complex, difficult to use
• Moving data around is hard
• Hard for user to publish their own data
Challenges•Reduce obstacles to Capturing, Organizing, Summarizing, Analyzing, Visualizing, and Curating
•Consider data and algorithms as “the product”
•Adopt semantic technologies to enable automated metadata tagging, clustering and mining
•Transition to the new astronomy• Sociological issues
NASA Data Centers
Int’l Data Centers
IndividualUsers
Kitchen Sink
New Science Paradigm:Science 2.0
•We must partner with other academic disciplines: Computer Science, Statistics, ...
•We must leverage partnerships with industry interested in enabling Science 2.0
•We must remember that we have the coolest datasets in the world (universe really)
Dr Alberto [email protected]
Dr Carol [email protected]
With thanks toBrian McLeanJosh PerlowTony RogersBernie ShiaoShui-ay Tseng