The complete L-band feed installation on CSIRO’s first ASKAP antenna.
Credit: Ross Forsyth, CSIRO.
SYDNEY: In order to tackle the immense data challenges posed by next-generation telescopes, Australian and U.S. research groups will design a common database system to process and share information.
This week, the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) in Western Australia, and the U.S.-based Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) Corporation forged a new partnership.
Together, the astronomy research organisations will work on computer systems that can process, store and compare data collected from both optical and radio telescopes, such as the international Square Kilometre Array (SKA) - a continent-wide 3,000 dish array.
"This collaboration will give us a great head start in preparing for the enormous data challenges of the SKA and will allow scientists access to both optical and radio data to probe the universe across all wavelengths," said ICRAR director Peter Quinn.
Optical telescopes generate data too
The SKA, which will be built in either South Africa or Australia-New Zealand, is expected to revolutionise radio astronomy. Similarly, the LSST, to be built in Chile, is going to fundamentally change the field of optical astronomy.
Equipped with the world's largest digital camera, the LSST will map the cosmos in greater detail than any previous light telescope. It's unrivalled sensitivity means vast amounts of incoming data that must be efficiently managed.
"To visualise a single LSST image at full resolution would require 1,500 1080p high-definition monitors, and each night we'll produce 2,000 of these images, for 10 years without significant interruptions," said LSST data management project leader Jeff Kantor.
Partnership makes sense
The LSST and the SKA face similar database challenges, said Kantor, and will eventually rely on not-yet-developed supercomputers to process information.
"Once you have processed the incoming data into sources and objects in a database, the problems associated with analysing the data are pretty similar between radio and optical wavelengths," Kantor said. "As both domains start to generate petascale databases, it makes sense to join forces to find solutions."
Andreas Wicenec, a professor of data intensive research at the University of Western Australia, agreed that the partnership was logical because the data levels generated by the LSST and SKA will be comparable and both will view the southern hemisphere.
"While the data collected by these observatories will initially look quite different, the resulting information after intensive processing is similar, and can therefore be compared and combined," he said.
Data needed from both domains
Although the exact parameters of the partnership have not been determined, the main project will likely involve research into shared multi-wavelength databases.
According to Wicenec this will allow researchers to use interfaces to do queries on both sides directly. For instance, if researchers are examining one region of the sky they can get all the relevant information on objects in that region from both domains.
Wicenec said combining information from radio and optical observatories is necessary to gain a more complete understanding of the physical processes taking place in and around objects in the sky.
