Revealing the multi-wavelength Universe with AstroGrid (Forwarded)

ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY PRESS INFORMATION NOTE

Issued by RAS Press Officers:

Dr Robert Massey
Tel: +44 (0)20 7734 3307 / 4582

Anita Heward
Tel: +44 (0)1483 420904

NATIONAL ASTRONOMY MEETING PRESS ROOM (31 MARCH - 4 APRIL ONLY):
Tel: +44 (0)2890 975262 / 975263 / 975264

NAM 2008
http://nam2008.qub.ac.uk

Royal Astronomical Society
http://www.ras.org.uk

CONTACTS

Professor Andrew Lawrence
AstroGrid Principal Investigator
Institute for Astronomy
University of Edinburgh, UK
E-mail:
Tel: +44 (0)131 668 8346
Tel: +44 (0)131 668 8356 (secretary)
Fax : +44 (0)131 668 8416

Dr Nicholas Walton
AstroGrid Project Scientist
Institute of Astronomy
University of Cambridge, UK
E-mail:
Tel: +44 (0)1223 337503
Fax: +44 (0)1223 337523

EMBARGOED UNTIL 0001 BST, 1 April 2008

Ref.: PN 08/34 (NAM 25)

Revealing the multi-wavelength Universe with AstroGrid

The multi-wavelength sky is set to clear as the world's most powerful
astronomical virtual observatory opens. The AstroGrid service provides the
UK astronomy community unparalleled access to the wide range of
multi-wavelength observations of our sky. Access to the AstroGrid service
becomes available at
http://www.astrogrid.org

Andy Lawrence, Regius Professor of Astronomy at the University of Edinburgh,
and Principal Investigator of the AstroGrid consortium, will be announcing
the launch of the AstroGrid service on 1 April 2008 at the RAS National
Astronomy Meeting (NAM 2008) held at Queen's University Belfast.

Professor Lawrence comments, "The astronomer in the UK can use the AstroGrid
VODesktop -- a simple yet powerful desktop client -- to find, analyse, and
visualise a vast range of data from the world's major telescopes (e.g. the
Hubble Space Telescope, the European Southern Observatory's Very Large
Telescope, the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton telescope, and so forth).
AstroGrid gives the UK astronomer a powerful new IT tool to help them stay
at the forefront of astronomical research, in this age of the data deluge
from new telescopes and space satellites."

Behind the scenes, the AstroGrid infrastructure connects the wide variety of
data and applications in use by astronomers. Additionally it gives users
there their own VOSpace, a virtual storage area which they can also use to
share and circulate their results.

AstroGrid is built conforming to global standards agreed by the
International Virtual Observatory Alliance (http://www.ivoa.net ). This
guarantees that users of AstroGrid are able to access data and applications
provided by global data centres, and are able to run science work flows
incorporating those data sets.

AstroGrid manages the technical complexity involved in providing authorised
and reliable connections to large scale distributed computer systems. The
scientist benefits from the power of grid computing, without the technology
getting in the way.

AstroGrid is set to revolutionise the way in which data in astronomy is
used, providing a vital new set of tools to enable the astronomers to fully
exploit the wealth of new observational data available to them, in turn
increasing the rate of discovery. It can be described as 'astronomy data
mining 2.0'.

The idea of the Virtual Observatory is that the world's astronomical data
should be transparently usable, in just the same way that the World Wide Web
makes documents all over the world feel part of a single interlinked system.
Just like the Web, the aim is that it should feel like all those datasets
are just inside a single computer, ready to use.

University of Cambridge astronomer and AstroGrid project scientist Dr
Nicholas Walton reflects on this: "There are more and more astronomical
datasets coming online every year and the risk of a 'Tower of Babel' unless
we act to standardise them. Astronomers need want to do more than just look
at datasets; we want our applications software to understand any data it
comes across. Software as well as data should then become increasingly
standardised.

At the same time as we wish the world of data to become transparent, it is
becoming harder to get at the data. The volume of astronomical data is
growing alarmingly quickly. While storage, CPU, and backbone Internet
bandwidth are growing rapidly, the rate at which you can download data is
much less impressive, and searching through a huge database on your PC can
take all day. The "download and then do it yourself" model has to change;
instead data services as well as actual data will increasingly be provided
by expert centres, while users find and consume these services. The
AstroGrid motto is 'download the results not the data' ."

NOTES FOR EDITORS

AstroGrid is the UK's Virtual Observatory. It has been developed by the
AstroGrid consortium, a partnership with groups from eight UK institutes:
Department of Physics, University of Bristol; Institute of Astronomy,
University of Cambridge; Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh;
Centre for Astrophysics, University of Central Lancashire; Dept of Physics
and Astronomy, University of Leicester; Mullard Space Science Laboratory,
University College London; Jodrell Bank Observatory, University of
Manchester; Space Data Division, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.

The RAS National Astronomy Meeting (NAM 2008) is hosted by Queen's
University Belfast. It is principally sponsored by the RAS and the Science
and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). NAM 2008 is being held together
with the UK Solar Physics (UKSP) and Magnetosphere, Ionosphere and
Solar-Terrestrial (MIST) spring meetings.

IMAGES:

The AstroGrid home page
http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~naw/NAM2008/ag-pr-fig1.png
Image: Nicholas Walton, University of Cambridge

Screenshot showing VODesktop and the VOExplorer application, used to find
the data that the astronomer needs
http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~naw/NAM2008/ag-pr-fig2.png
Image: Nicholas Walton, University of Cambridge

The tip of the iceberg: this image shows how use of the simple VODesktop
client enables the astronomers to simply access a wealth of data -- made
accessible through the underlying AstroGrid service infrastructure
(invisible to the user)
http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~naw/NAM2008/ag-pr-fig3.png
Image: Nicholas Walton, University of Cambridge

Ground based and Hubble Space Telescope images of IC 5070 -- the Pelican
Nebula -- a region of strong nebulosity, harbouring new stars and planets.
VOExplorer was used to find data resources, then those selected transferred
with a single point and click to the display tool on the user's desktop
http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~naw/NAM2008/ag-pr-fig4.png
Image: Nicholas Walton, University of Cambridge. Includes images from the
Isaac Newton Group and STScI