The VRO: How Astronomy’s Biggest Dataset Will Change Your Universe Prof. Eric Morganson National Center for Supercomputing Applications University of Illinois July 20, 2020 The Name Thing Formerly: telescope and data were LSST (the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope) Telescope: Vera Rubin Observatory Data: LSST (Legacy Survey of Space and Time) Vera Rubin measured galaxy masses and discovered strong evidence for dark matter Outline How optical astronomy works How the Vera Rubin Observatory changes the game What we will learn How you can see the data How optical astronomy works Optical Surveys Are Big Maps Map by Pan-STARRS, a telescope with a 1.8 meter mirror Get Better Data with a Bigger Telescope SDSS, a 2.5 meter telescope (cheap) Subaru, an 8.1 meter telescope (expensive) Get Better Data with a Bigger Telescope Get Many Observations (A “Light Curve”) Get Different Observations (Radio, X-Ray, Spectra) Left: The ALMA Radio Array Top Right: The Chandra X-Ray Telescope Bottom Right: An optical Spectrum How the VRO changes the game Big Telescopes Have Small Fields of View ● Sky: 40,000 square degrees ● Moon: 0.2 square degrees ● Large telescopes: ~0.01 square degree ● ~4 million images to cover the sky ○ 12 Years Most 8-10 m telescopes image the red circle How VRO is Different ● Sky: 40,000 square degrees ● Moon: 0.2 square degrees ● VRO images: 9.6 square degrees ● 4,300 images to cover the sky ○ 5 nights Most 8-10 m telescopes image the red circle Legacy Survey of Space and Time ● 10 Year Survey ○ Starting 2023 ● Images very deep ○ 100x deeper than previous surveys ● Southern Sky 1000 times ○ Gets color information ○ Get light curve Why Didn’t We Do This Years Ago? Large mirror: expensive Large field of view: more precise engineering Large Mirror with Large Field of View: super expensive Gigantic CCD camera: super expensive and maybe impossible before 2010 The Telescope The Camera (In Mac Units) ● World’s Largest ○ 6200 LBS ● 3200 Megapixel ○ 267 iPhones ● Each Image 6 GB ● 540 GB/hour ○ 1 MacBook Pro ● 10 TB / Day ○ 20 MacBook Pros ● 30 PB over Survey ○ 60 K MacBook Pros ● 10x bigger than all astronomical data currently taken What we will learn Cosmology: Expansion and Galaxy Clustering Milky Way: History of Collisions Left: simulated galaxy mergers create “streams” Right: actual streams around the Milky Way Find 90% Asteroid bigger than 140 Meters LSST “Alerts”: Stuff Exploding Left: star falling into black hole in a “Tidal Disruption Event” Right: Two Neutron stars spinning into a black hole How you can see the data Yearly Release ● LSST will release maps yearly (starting 2024) ● Same pixels researchers use ● Many surveys do this now ○ Dark Energy Survey ○ des.ncsa.illinois.edu/easyweb Public Alerts ● Users can receive custom alerts: ○ Image ○ Brightness ○ Location ● Alerts could be: ○ Every observation of an object ○ Every new supernova* ○ Every observation of an asteroid ● Available as: ○ Download ○ Email ○ Tweet/text/??? *LSST will find 1,000 new supernova per night A Whole New Zooniverse ● Zooniverse: classify objects from large datasets ● Multiple astronomy and non-astronomy projects ● Fun, easy, clicky, addictive ● Contributes to real discoveries ● Astronomy projects will soon be dominated by LSST data https://www.zooniverse.org/.