[meteorite-list] Caltech Helps Open the Universe in 'WorldWide Telescope'

[Ron Baalke]

Caltech News Release
For Immediate Release
May 13, 2008

Caltech Helps Open the Universe in "WorldWide Telescope"

PASADENA, Calif.-- Panoramic images of the sky obtained at Palomar 
Observatory and by the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS), plus 
pointed observations from the Spitzer Space Telescope, form a 
significant part of the "World Wide Telescope" (WWT), a new product 
released today by Microsoft aimed at bringing exploration of the 
Universe and its many wonders to the general public.

WorldWide Telescope is a rich Web application that combines imagery 
from the best ground- and space-based observatories across the world, 
stitching together terabytes of high-resolution images of celestial 
bodies and displaying them in a way that relates to their actual 
relative position in the sky. Using their own computers, people from 
all walks of life can freely browse through the solar system, galaxy, 
and beyond. They can choose which telescope they want to look 
through, including NASA's Hubble, Chandra, and Spitzer Telescopes, to 
view the locations of planets in the night sky--in the past, present 
or future--and the universe through different wavelengths of light to 
reveal hidden structures in other parts of the galaxy. Taken as a 
whole, the application provides a top-to-bottom view of the science 
of astronomy.

"The progression from William and Caroline Herschel's visual catalogs 
in the late 1700s to digital pictures available to anyone with a home 
computer shows the amazing advances in astronomy over two centuries, 
and also the continuity of our subject," says Wallace Sargent, Ira S. 
Bowen Professor of Astronomy at the California Institute of 
Technology. Scientists at Caltech provided many of the images 
displayed in WWT and are working with the Microsoft team to enrich 
and expand the content and the educational possibilities offered by 
the application.

The WWT combines cosmic imagery and educational content from many 
sources, including major ground-based sky surveys. One of those was 
the survey conducted at Palomar Observatory in visible light; another 
was the 2MASS survey in the infrared. Both projects are managed and 
distributed at Caltech's Infrared Processing and Analysis Center 
(IPAC).

Palomar Observatory, which is operated by Caltech, has conducted a 
number of major sky surveys since the 1950s, initially with 
photographic plates, and now with modern digital detectors. The 
surveys are conducted using the 48-inch Samuel Oschin Telescope.

Images of the northern sky used in the WWT are based on the second 
major photographic Palomar Sky Survey (POSS-II), conducted in the 
late 1980s and early 1990s. A digital version of this survey was 
produced in collaboration with the Space Telescope Science Institute 
in Baltimore, Maryland, and processed and calibrated at Caltech under 
the leadership of Caltech Professor of Astronomy S. George 
Djorgovski. This survey has detected over 50 million galaxies and 
about a billion stars, as well as many other interesting objects. 
Additional images for the WWT were provided by the currently ongoing 
Palomar-Quest digital sky survey. All of the images were processed at 
Caltech's Center for Advanced Computing Research (CACR). "Astronomy 
is now a computationally intensive field. We hope to use the WWT as a 
gateway to learning, not just about astronomy, but also about 
information technology and computational thinking, which are so 
important for all aspects of modern scholarship and society," says 
Roy Williams of CACR.

Using data collected from twin 1.3-meter telescopes in Arizona and 
Chile over a 3.5-year period, 2MASS produced the first 
high-resolution digital survey of the complete infrared sky, 
providing the international astronomical community with an 
unprecedented global view of the Milky Way and nearby galaxies. 2MASS 
was the most thorough census ever made of the Milky Way galaxy and 
the nearby universe. It detected infrared wavelengths, which are 
longer than the red light in the rainbow of visible colors. Infrared 
light penetrates dust more effectively than visible light, so it is 
particularly useful for detecting objects obscured within the Milky 
Way, as well as the faint heat of very cool objects that give off 
very little visible light of their own.

"Humans have always been fascinated by the universe, by the starry 
sky," says Djorgovski. "We are hoping to help reignite that sense of 
wonder and exploration among students and curious people everywhere."


More information is available at the following:

The Digital Palomar Observatory Sky Survey website:
http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~george/dposs/

The Palomar-Quest sky survey website: http://palquest.org/

The "Big Picture" outreach website: http://bigpicture.caltech.edu/

Palomar Observatory website: http://www.astro.caltech.edu/palomar/

The Samuel Oschin Telescope: http://www.astro.caltech.edu/palomar/sot.html

The Center for Advanced Computing Research website: 
http://www.cacr.caltech.edu/

Caltech's Infrared Processing and Analysis Center: http://ipac.caltech.edu.

WorldWide Telescope can be accessed at http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/

Wallace Sargent's description of the POSS-II survey: 
http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~wws/poss2.html


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Contact:
S. George Djorgovski
Caltech Astronomy
george at astro.caltech.edu
(626) 395-4415

Roy Williams
Caltech Center for Advanced Computing Research
roy at cacr.caltech.edu
(626) 395-3670

Kathy Svitil
(626) 395-8022
ksvitil at caltech.edu