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 Contiaconti@stsci.edu

Dr Carol Christiancarolc@stsci.eduCollaborator

With thanks toBrian McLeanJosh PerlowTony RogersBernie ShiaoShui-ay Tseng