Related papers: Exploring the Time Domain With Synoptic Sky Survey…

I review progress in the past few years in studying the large-scale structure of the universe through redshift surveys of galaxies. Of the many statistical methods used to describe the galaxy distribution, I concentrate here on the power…

We review some aspects of the current state of data-intensive astronomy, its methods, and some outstanding data analysis challenges. Astronomy is at the forefront of "big data" science, with exponentially growing data volumes and data…

We introduce a new visual analytic approach to the study of scientific discoveries and knowledge diffusion. Our approach enhances contemporary co-citation network analysis by enabling analysts to identify co-citation clusters of cited…

As our capacity to study ever-expanding domains of our science has increased (including the time domain, non-electromagnetic phenomena, magnetized plasmas, and numerous sky surveys in multiple wavebands with broad spatial coverage and…

Large digital sky surveys, over a broad range of wavelengths, both from the ground and from space observatories, are becoming a major source of astronomical data. Some examples include the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the Digital…

Astronomy is one of the most data-intensive of the sciences. Data technology is accelerating the quality and effectiveness of its research, and the rate of astronomical discovery is higher than ever. As a result, many view astronomy as…

Most major discoveries in astronomy are unplanned, and result from surveying the Universe in a new way, rather than by testing a hypothesis or conducting an investigation with planned outcomes. For example, of the 10 greatest discoveries…

The days of the lone astronomer with his optical telescope and photographic plates are long gone: Astronomy in 2025 will not only be multi-wavelength, but multi-messenger, and dominated by huge data sets and matching data rates. Catalogues…

Existing and future wide-field photometric surveys will produce a time-lapse movie of the sky that will revolutionize our census of variable and moving astronomical and atmospheric phenomena. As with any revolution in scientific measurement…

All sciences, including astronomy, are now entering the era of information abundance. The exponentially increasing volume and complexity of modern data sets promises to transform the scientific practice, but also poses a number of common…

The number of small satellites has grown dramatically in the past decade from tens of satellites per year in the mid-2010s to a projection of tens of thousands in orbit by the mid-2020s. This presents both problems and opportunities for…

An automated, rapid classification of transient events detected in the modern synoptic sky surveys is essential for their scientific utility and effective follow-up using scarce resources. This problem will grow by orders of magnitude with…

Observatories are complex scientific and technical institutions serving diverse users and purposes. Their telescopes, instruments, software, and human resources engage in interwoven workflows over a broad range of timescales. These…

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope is designed to provide an unprecedented optical imaging dataset that will support investigations of our Solar System, Galaxy and Universe, across half the sky and over ten years of repeated observation.…

Time-domain astronomy is entering an era of unprecedented discovery driven by wide-field, high-cadence surveys such as LSST, Roman, Euclid, SKA, and PLATO. While some of these facilities will generate enormous photometric alert streams, the…

An array of large observational programs using ground-based and space-borne telescopes is planned in the next decade. The forthcoming wide-field sky surveys are expected to deliver a sheer volume of data exceeding an exabyte. Processing the…

I summarize the current spectroscopic sky surveys and some of the scientific results, emphasizing the largest sky survey to-date, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Techniques used commonly in spectral analyses are discussed, followed by…

The last 20 years have seen an explosion in our understanding of the large-scale distribution and motions of galaxies in the nearby universe. The field has moved from a largely qualitative, morphological description of the structures seen…

Much of the science case for the next generation of deep, wide-field optical/infrared surveys has been driven by the further study of dark energy. This is a laudable goal (and the subject of a companion white paper by Zhan et al.). However,…

Cosmic surveys of large scale structure have imaged hundreds of millions of galaxies and mapped the 3D positions of over a million. Surveys starting over the next few years will increase these numbers more than tenfold. Simultaneously,…