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Archive of International Virtual Observatory Discussions Majordomo List

FYI: Nature article on IVO

From: <Ray.Norris_at_email.protected>
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2002 09:22:49 +1000

FYI, here is the article in last weeks "Nature" about the IVO

Cheers

Ray

20 June 2002
Nature 417, 777 (2002); doi:10.1038/417777b
Astronomers give virtual observatory a real future

DECLAN BUTLER

The International Virtual Observatory (IVO) - an amalgamation of
astronomical and astrophysical data from the world's best telescopes and
detectors - is on track to start operations early next year.

Two hundred astronomers and government officials met in Garching, Germany,
on 10-14 June to plan the collaboration, which would integrate the world's
astronomy databases into a single seamless resource.

They agreed to create an International Virtual Observatory Alliance,
comprising representatives of existing astronomy databases, to make joint
decisions on the key technologies, common data and software standards to be
used in the project.

The meeting's delegates were optimistic that the community may be ready to
begin using prototypes of the databases by next January, says Catherine
Cesarsky, director of the European Southern Observatory, which is based in
Garching and operates telescopes in Chile.

The main components of the IVO are currently in development. About US$20
million has been allocated by the United States, Britain, the European Union
and Canada over over the past six months to virtual observatories based on
their own databases, and more projects are being planned in Australia,
India, Russia and Germany. The IVO's challenge is to combine these into a
single resource.

Advances in telescope design mean that new generations of -ray, X-ray,
optical and infrared telescopes are coming online, generating data at vastly
increasing rates.

Astronomical databases are doubling in size each year, points out Jeremiah
Ostriker, an astrophysicist at the University of Cambridge, UK. He argues
that the data can only be handled using new techniques for distributed,
high-power computing.

Enthusiasm for the IVO reflects a profound shift in how astronomy works,
with researchers moving from the study of specific objects through
particular telescopes to the systematic surveying of entire swathes of the
sky, along the lines of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (see Nature 407, 557;
2000).

In this environment, astronomers say, the advantages of the IVO are
manifest. The data it holds will be re-used by many research teams, for
different purposes. For example, supernovae could be studied by correlating
signals in astronomy databases with gravitational-wave data, as well as data
from neutrino detectors in high-energy-physics databases.

The IVO will also democratize astronomy and astrophysics, adds Cesarsky, as
scientists and amateur astronomers, who lack the resources to build and
operate large observatories, will gain access to data from the world's best
instruments and to sophisticated analysis tools.

Prof. Ray P. Norris
Deputy Director
CSIRO Australia Telescope National Facility
PO Box 76
Epping NSW 1710
Email Ray.Norris_at_EmailProtected
http://www.atnf.csiro.au/~rnorris
Tel +61 2 9372 4416
Fax +61 2 9372 4310
Mobile +61 417 288 307
Received on 2002-06-28 09:23:18