Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes

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The Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) is an astronomical data archive. The archive brings together data from the visible, ultraviolet, and near-infrared wavelength regimes. The NASA funded project is located at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland and is one of the largest astronomical databases in the world.

The archive was named after Barbara Ann Mikulski, a long time champion of the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes, in 2012. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] It is a component of NASA's distributed Space Science Data Services. [6] The archive contains the data from a number of instruments like Pan-Starrs, [7] [8] Kepler, [9] and TESS, [10] as well as data for the Hubble Space Telescope [11] (HST) and James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

In October 2020 the project released the largest and most detailed 3D maps of the Universe, the classification and photometric redshift catalog "PS1-STRM". The data was created using neural networks and combines data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and others. Users can query the dataset online or download it in its entirety of ~300GB. [12] [13] [14]

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A space telescope or space observatory is a telescope in outer space used to observe astronomical objects. Suggested by Lyman Spitzer in 1946, the first operational telescopes were the American Orbiting Astronomical Observatory, OAO-2 launched in 1968, and the Soviet Orion 1 ultraviolet telescope aboard space station Salyut 1 in 1971. Space telescopes avoid the filtering and distortion (scintillation) of electromagnetic radiation which they observe, and avoid light pollution which ground-based observatories encounter. They are divided into two types: Satellites which map the entire sky, and satellites which focus on selected astronomical objects or parts of the sky and beyond. Space telescopes are distinct from Earth imaging satellites, which point toward Earth for satellite imaging, applied for weather analysis, espionage, and other types of information gathering.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Galaxy cluster</span> Structure made up of a gravitationally-bound aggregation of hundreds of galaxies

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">NGC 4261</span> Galaxy in the constellation Virgo

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alberto Conti</span> Italian-American astrophysicist (born 1966)

Alberto Conti, is an astrophysicist and the Vice President and General Manager of the Civil Space Strategic Business Unit (SBU) at Ball Aerospace. He is one of the creators of the GoogleSky concept, of the idea of astronomical outreach at South by SouthWest 2013 and of the James Webb Space Telescope iBook. He is also the Executive Producer of the Emmy Winning CNN Films The Hunt for Planet B.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matt Mountain</span> President of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy

Charles Mattias ("Matt") Mountain is currently the President of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) which designs, builds, and operates telescopes and observatories for the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). AURA's NASA center is the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), responsible for the science mission for the Hubble Space Telescope, the science and operations for the James Webb Space Telescope, and the MAST data archive. AURA's NSF centers are Gemini Observatory, the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO), and the National Solar Observatory (NSO). Dr. Mountain and AURA are also responsible for the NSF construction projects: the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) on Haleakalā, Hawaii and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) on Cerro Pachón in Chile.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Williams (astronomer)</span> American astronomer (born 1940)

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">NGC 2525</span> Galaxy in the constellation Puppis

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amber Straughn</span> American astrophysicist

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">SMACS J0723.3–7327</span> Galaxy cluster in the constellation Volans

SMACS J0723.3–7327, commonly referred to as SMACS 0723, is a galaxy cluster about 4 billion light years from Earth, within the southern constellation of Volans. It is a patch of sky visible from the Southern Hemisphere on Earth and often observed by the Hubble Space Telescope and other telescopes in search of the deep past. It was the target of the first full-color image to be unveiled by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), imaged using NIRCam, with spectra included, showing objects lensed by the cluster with redshifts implying they are 13.1 billion years old. The cluster has been previously observed by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) as part of the Southern MAssive Cluster Survey (SMACS), as well as Planck and Chandra.

References

  1. "Hubble Archive, Supernova Named in Honor of Mikulski". SpaceNews.com.
  2. "Astronomy archive honors Sen. Mikulski". UPI. Retrieved 2018-05-26.
  3. "Barbara Mikulski Honored With Supernova". HuffPost . 2012-04-05. Retrieved 2018-05-26.
  4. Dattaro, Laura. "Senator Barbara Mikulski, Supernova". citypaper.com. Retrieved 2018-05-26.
  5. Weaver, Dustin (2012-04-05). "Sen. Mikulski to have supernova named after her". The Hill . Retrieved 2018-05-26.
  6. "NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive".
  7. "Space Telescope Science Institute to Host Data from World's Largest Digital Sky Survey". Newswise.com.
  8. "The Biggest Digital Map of the Cosmos Ever Made". The New York Times .
  9. "Tales from the Exoplanet Archive: How NASA Keeps Track of Alien Worlds". Space.com.
  10. "TESS Launches New Era of Exoplanet Discovery --"Zooming in on Alien Life"". DailyGalaxy.com.
  11. "NASA extends Hubble Space Telescope science operations contract". Astronomy.com.
  12. "Astronomers produce largest 3-D catalog of galaxies". phys.org. Retrieved 9 November 2020.
  13. Williams, Matt (14 October 2020). "The Most Comprehensive 3D Map of Galaxies Has Been Released". Universe Today. Retrieved 9 November 2020.
  14. Szapudi, Istvan; Beck, Robert (2020). "PS1-STRM". MAST. STScI/MAST. doi:10.17909/t9-rnk7-gr88 . Retrieved 9 November 2020. CC-BY icon.svg Data available under CC BY 4.0.