Carnegie Mellon University will share a $1.6 million grant to study space and the final frontier: astrophysical phenomena and the nature of dark energy.
No longer are astronomers concerned with what they themselves
see through the lens of a telescope. Astronomic data-gathering today
involves amassing vast data sets, images of space, which has generated an overwhelming amount of material
for astronomers, says Jeff Schneider, associate research professor in the School of Computer Science and leader of the initiative.
Using data from one of the most powerful telescopes in the world, researchers are assisting the astronomers by developing algorithms that methodically point to possible discoveries in all the cosmological data.
"Our algorithms will sift through the data for new objects and patterns that no one ever knew existed, patterns you wouldn't be able to discover without the computer," says Schneider. "We're hoping to discover more about the nature of dark energy, no one knows what it is."
The researchers will use data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a New Mexico telescope that during its first eight years of operation amassed a dataset that includes 930,000 galaxies, 120,000 quasars and 460,000 stars.
Carnegie Mellon will work on the three-year grant from the U.S. Dept. of Energy with researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the University of Washington.
Writer:
Debra Diamond SmitSource: Jeff Schneider, Carnegie Mellon University
Image courtesy of Carnegie Mellon University