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Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic |
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Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic |
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Public lecture December 10, 2007
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Monday December 10, 2007 in new lecture room in Astronomical Institute Ondrejov The astronomical research at the beginning of 21st century has to deal with Peta-bytes of science data resulting from growing size of detectors commissioned at even moderate size telescopes and space experiments or being produced by numeric simulations on super-computing grids. The effective exploitation of this exponentially increasing "Data Avalanche" requires qualitatively new organization of data storage and novel data archiving strategy emphasizing the role of global network of decentralized databases and data repositories interconnected through the powerful and flexible protocols. The clever infrastructure together with detailed description of data using XML-based meta-data tags allows the effective data mining techniques to be applied on datasets with billions of items to find rare yet unknown classes of astronomical objects or to investigate new physical phenomena and relations across the whole range of electromagnetic spectrum. I will give the basic overview of principles and technology the VO is based on and explain the reasons why the VO is recognized as a new revolutionary research tool changing the way of doing astronomy in near future. Finally I will briefly mention the relation of VO activities to the global effort of democratization of science lead by various global organizations (including UNESCO) as well as the importance of preservation of astronomical data as a part of knowledge of all mankind through the digital curation centers in the framework of EU-funded CASPAR and e-science projects. Jiri Horak organizer |