'Through the looking glass' -- the Universe at your computer(Forwarded)

Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council
Swindon, U.K.

For more information contact:

PPARC
Julia Maddock
PPARC Press Officer
Tel +44 (0)1793 442094

UK e-Science Programme
Judy Redfearn
e-Science/Research Communications Officer, JISC/e-Science Core Programme
Tel. 07768 356309

22 September 2005

'Through the looking glass' -- the Universe at your computer

Astronomers throughout the UK now have a valuable new research tool at
their disposal which may lead to new discoveries and improved
understanding of the physics of the Universe. Launched this week,
AstroGrid provides a unique way of accessing, processing and storing
astronomical data obtained from a diverse range of data archives held
anywhere on Earth. AstroGrid will open the way for virtual observing on
individual computers, enabling astronomers to compare and manipulate a
wide range of astronomical data taken from both ground and space-based
telescopes.

Astronomy is now in a golden age of discovery, with many new breakthroughs
being made with the availability of high quality observations of the
cosmos from major new observational facilities, such as the European
Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope [VLT] in Chile and the
European Space Agency's XMM-Newton space-based observatory, which provide
information across a wide range of the electro-magnetic spectrum from
radio to visible light to gamma rays.

The data taken from ground and space-based observations are held in
separate archives and the challenge has been to provide the astronomer
with the ability to bring these various pieces of data together, enabling
them to understand the wider picture. For example one astronomer may
survey the sky in the optical wavelengths, using the Sloan Digital Sky
Survey, whilst another astronomer may analyse data from the XMM-Newton,
each resulting in different answers. Only by comparing the two sets of
data, or even adding another data set (e.g. infrared data from Spitzer),
can they then discover that certain previously insignificant faint objects
seen in the optical are in fact distant galaxies harbouring massive black
holes at their core.

Nic Walton, AstroGrid's Project Scientist, said: "This first phase of the
AstroGrid Virtual Observatory system represents a major milestone,
unifying for the first time, the mass of astronomical data available to
the astronomer, thus offering the potential to significantly increase the
rate at which astronomers gain new insights into our Universe."

AstroGrid, the UK's Virtual Observatory, will achieve this by providing a
system that allows an astronomer to gain access to data not just from one
telescope, but from all telescopes. AstroGrid makes use of the latest
developments in distributed computing to enable the access and
manipulation of large amounts of data (for example the whole sky imaged in
one colour is 100 TB). More importantly it implements standards that it
has agreed with other partner projects across the globe (through the so
called International Virtual Observatory Alliance) in order to ensure that
data from any telescope can be described and understood by automated
systems, thus making large scale analysis of the data on distributed
computing systems much easier.

Andy Lawrence, the AstroGrid Project Leader from Edinburgh, said: "When
you browse the Web it feels like all the world's web pages are sitting
there inside your own computer. The idea of the Virtual Observatory is to
achieve the same transparency for data and tools -- astronomical databases
and lots of analysis tools are spread all over the Internet, but they feel
like they are inside your laptop, waiting to work with, and all speaking
to each other. This is an ambitious vision, but with this first AstroGrid
release it begins to look like a concrete reality."

The latest release of AstroGrid is now being used by a wide range of
astronomers to address a number of astrophysical problems. For instance,
the impact of our Sun's solar eruptions on the Earth's magnetosphere is
being studied through the linkage of various models and data archives
linked via AstroGrid. In another example, massive multi-wavelength data is
being analysed in an attempt to reveal the star formation histories of the
earliest galaxies.

Using AstroGrid an astronomer can request sets of observations of the same
area of sky taken by several different telescopes and combine the data;
perform the same analysis on all the data simply by setting up a set of
commands in the AstroGrid system. Previously each data set would have to
be processed individually, taking much longer to get results.

Professor Keith Mason, CEO of the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research
Council, which funds AstroGrid, said: "It is essential to compare and mix
data from different sources in order to maximise the information we can
glean from modern astronomical data. These tools will undoubtedly lead to
new discoveries about the Universe that would have previously gone
unnoticed."

AstroGrid is a consortium of Universities funded by the Particle Physics
and Astronomy Research Council as part of its eScience programme with
additional funding through the European Commission's Framework 6
programme.

Notes for Editors:

Conference website,
http://www.allhands.org.uk/

Images showing the AstroGrid are available from Julia Maddock.

Further information about the UK e-Science Programme,
http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/escience

About PPARC,
http://www.pparc.ac.uk/Ap/intro.asp