International Journal of Advancements in Technology
Open Access

Abstract

Big Data Era in Astronomy

Areg Mickaelian

Introduction: At present Astronomy enters the Big Data Era; there are many all-sky and large-area astronomical surveys and their catalogued data over the whole range of electromagnetic spectrum, from gamma-ray to radio, such as:

Fermi-GLAST and INTEGRAL in gamma-ray, ROSAT, XMM and Chandra in X-ray, GALEX in UV, SDSS and several POSS1 and POSS2 based catalogues (APM, MAPS, USNO, GSC) in optical range, 2MASS in NIR, WISE and AKARI IRC in MIR, IRAS and AKARI FIS in FIR, NVSS and FIRST in radio and many others.
I will review other important surveys as well, giving: optical images (DSS I and II, SDSS, etc.), proper motions (Tycho, USNO, Gaia), variability (GCVS, NSVS, ASAS, Catalina, Pan-STARRS), spectroscopic data (FBS, SBS, Case, HQS, HES, SDSS, CALIFA, GAMA).
All this provides vast amount of multi-wavelength and multi-messenger data. Most important astronomical databases and archives are reviewed as well, including Wide-Field Plate DataBase (WFPDB), ESO, HEASARC, IRSA and MAST archives, CDS SIMBAD, VizieR and Aladin, NED and HyperLEDA extragalactic databases, ADS and astro-ph services. They are powerful sources for many-sided efficient research using the Virtual Observatory (VO) environment.
Conclusion: It is shown that combined use and analysis of Big Data accumulated in astronomy lead to many new discoveries. The review is especially useful for the astronomers and students working in countries without access to big telescopes that can benefit from online data and VO tools to do big science.

Published Date: 2020-10-15; Received Date: 2020-02-11