Related papers: Discovering the Unexpected in Astronomical Survey …
Every field of Science is undergoing unprecedented changes in the discovery process, and Astronomy has been a main player in this transition since the beginning. The ongoing and future large and complex multi-messenger sky surveys impose a…
The new generation of ground-based, large-aperture solar telescopes promises to significantly increase our capabilities to understand the many basic phenomena taking place in the Sun at all atmospheric layers and how they relate to each…
Observational astronomy is plagued with selection effects that must be taken into account when interpreting data from astronomical surveys. Because of the physical limitations of observing time and instrument sensitivity, datasets are…
We present a novel method for anomaly detection in Solar System object data, in preparation for the Legacy Survey of Space and Time. We train a deep autoencoder for anomaly detection and use the learned latent space to search for other…
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.…
The Mega-MUSE Nearby Galaxy Serendipity Survey is a White Paper in response to the ESO Expanding Horizons Call for Ideas. It is based on the notion that novel observing facilities for astronomy almost always make discoveries that were not…
Anomaly detection seeks to identify unusual phenomena, a central task in science and industry. The task is inherently unsupervised as anomalies are unexpected and unknown during training. Recent advances in self-supervised representation…
Astronomers occasionally detect an object having unexpected shape, unexplainable photometry, or unprecedented spectra that are inconsistent with our contemporary knowledge of the universe. Upon careful assessment, many of these anomalies…
We describe the application of data mining algorithms to research problems in astronomy. We posit that data mining has always been fundamental to astronomical research, since data mining is the basis of evidence-based discovery, including…
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…
A few percent of all stars are variable, yet over 90% of variables brighter than 12 magnitude have not been discovered yet. There is a need for an all sky search and for the early detection of any unexpected events: optical flashes from…
Modern astronomy increasingly relies upon systematic surveys, whose dedicated telescopes continuously observe the sky across varied wavelength ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum; some surveys also observe non-electromagnetic…
In the last decade a new generation of telescopes and sensors has allowed the production of a very large amount of data and astronomy has become, a data-rich science; this transition is often labeled as: "data revolution" and "data…
Astronomy has a long history of acquiring, systematizing, and interpreting large quantities of data. Starting from the earliest sky atlases through the first major photographic sky surveys of the 20th century, this tradition is continuing…
Astronomy is at times a science of unexpected discovery. When it is, and if we are lucky, new intellectual territories emerge to challenge our views of the cosmos. The recent indirect detections using high-precision Doppler spectroscopy of…
Our knowledge of the Galaxy is being revolutionised by a series of photometric, spectroscopic and astrometric surveys. Already an enormous body of data is available from completed surveys, and data of ever increasing quality and richness…
The Hubble Space Telescope (HST), in its thirteen years of operation, has allowed us to observe properties of the universe humans have been able, until very recently, to probe only with their thoughts. This review presents a brief summary…
Weird galaxies are outliers that have either unknown or very uncommon features making them different from the normal sample. These galaxies are very interesting as they may provide new insights into current theories, or can be used to form…
The volume of data that will be produced by the next generation of astrophysical instruments represents a significant opportunity for making unplanned and unexpected discoveries. Conversely, finding unexpected objects or phenomena within…
In the upcoming decade large astronomical surveys will discover millions of transients raising unprecedented data challenges in the process. Only the use of the machine learning algorithms can process such large data volumes. Most of the…