wolfram data summit: new frontiers in astronomy
DESCRIPTION
What are the challenges facing astronomy? How can astronomy cope with the changing landscape for both data and collaborations? Here I tried to frame the problem and give some possible answers to what astronomers and others needs to address.TRANSCRIPT
New Frontiers in Astronomy Dr Alberto ContiSpace Telescope Science Institute
April 2006
• Visible – Hubble Space Telescope• Gamma rays - Compton Gamma Ray Obs.• X-rays - Chandra X-ray Observatory• Infrared - Spitzer Space Telescope
Optimize the science from community-led astrophysics missions and projects. Develop, nurture, and share innovations in space astronomy science operations.
Collaborate on the next generation of space astrophysics programs.
Optical & UVData Archive
Astronomy Project TimelineA Partial List of Key Astrophysics Facilities
Start date and Probable Duration
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
SDSS
VLT & Gemini Observatories
SIM? TPF?
2000 2005 2010 2015 2020
Astronomy Project TimelineSTScI 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?
SDSS
VLT & Gemini Observatories
Start date and Probable Duration2000 2005 2010 2015 2020
LSST
Challenges for the Future
Space is big!For one picture you need a 2 Trillion pixels camera!
Challenges for the Future
Monochrome : 4 Terabytes or
5% of the Library of Congress
Challenges for the Future
Color: 100 Terabytes or
the 21% more than the entire Library of Congress
Challenges for the Future
Time: 10 Petabytesor
120 times the entireLibrary of Congress
Challenges for the Future
New analysis & visualization tools are required
Astronomy is changing
Detectors follow Moore’s Law
Total data doubles every year
Growth over 25 years is a factor of 30 in glass, 3000 in pixels
ComputerScience Biology Economics
Medicine Government Astronomy
Massive amounts of information
ComputerScience Biology Economics
Medicine Government Astronomy
Massive amounts of information
e-Science
New Science Paradigm for Astronomy
Time
Dat
a Vo
lum
e
New Paradigm Issues
• Moving data around is hard
• Extracting knowledge is hard
• Complex, difficult to use
• Hard for user to publish their own data
• Many distributed services are unreliable
ASTRONOMY IS SPECIAL!
No commercial value
Ideal testbed for complex algorithms
Interesting problems
Plenty of data
ADAPT OR PERISH
Google Earth, Microsoft Virtual Earth have revolutionized the way we look at our planet
We need a new synergistic approach to the challenge of bringing the universe to our desktops
New Science Paradigm:First Iteration
Mission A
Mission B
Mission C
Observatory X
Observatory Y
Few Data Standards, Some Protocols
New Science Paradigm:Second Iteration
Data Standards, Protocols Simple Mining Tools
Mission A
Mission B
Mission C
Observatory X
Observatory Y
Metadata
NASA Data Centers
Intʼl Data Centers
IndividualUsers
Kitchen Sink
New Science Paradigm:Science 2.0
MAST @ STScI
Global 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
• Infrastructure not available for intensive data mining
• Solutions for handling large datasets are lacking
• Cloud hosting solutions still expensive
• Unclear if commercial solutions can fit science needs
Technological Challenges
• We must partner with other academic disciplines: Computer Science, Statistics, ...
• We must leverage partnerships with industry interested in enabling Science 2.0
• We must learn to be humble and ask for help
• We must remember that we have the greatest datasets in the world (universe really!)
