New 'HSC Viewer' allows public to access Subaru Telescope images

The National Astronomical Observatory of Japan has released the HSC Viewer to help the public access observations of the universe made by the Subaru Telescope and its Hyper Suprime-Cam.

"I developed this viewer so the general public can become familiar with the latest, extensive HSC data," astronomer Michitaro Koike said in a Thursday news release. "I hope you enjoy exploring the universe which the Subaru Telescope observes."

The Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program, a survey of the universe's billions of galaxies, is being executed by NAOJ in partnership with the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe in Japan, Taiwan's Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics and Princeton University in the United States.

HSC-SSP scientists have released two datasets collected as part of the survey. Now, scientists have offered the public an easier way to access and explore the data.

Subaru's Hyper Suprime-Cam is capable of capturing both optical and infrared images. When complete, the HSC-SSP survey will have collected astronomical data over the course of 300 nights.

"Since 2014, we have been observing the sky with HSC, a wide-field camera with high resolution," said Satoshi Miyazaki, lead HSC-SSP scientist. "We believe the data release will lead to many exciting astronomical results, from exploring the nature of dark matter and dark energy, as well as asteroids in our own solar system objects and galaxies in the early universe. Moreover, we hope that interested members of the public will also access the data and enjoy the real universe imaged by the Subaru Telescope on Maunakea."

China moving ahead with plans for next-generation X-ray observatory
Washington (UPI) Mar 8, 2018 - China is getting closer to a finalized design for its next-generation X-ray observatory.

As reported by Science this week, scientists at China's National Space Science Center are honing in on the final iteration of their design for the X-Ray Timing and Polarimetry, eXTP, satellite.

The eXTP mission team plans to complete a prototype by 2022, with a goal to launch the satellite in 2025. The project will cost as an estimated $473 million.

At recent meeting in Beijing, Xiangli Bin, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, predicted eXTP would become "China's flagship science satellite."

"As we only have seven years to go it sounds like mission impossible," Xiangli said. "But we will coordinate international efforts and deliver it without delay."

Engineers plan to outfit the X-ray telescope with a variety of instruments designed to study the cosmos' most violent phenomena, including black holes, neutron stars and the collisions of massive galaxies.

"This powerful payload is absolutely unique," Andrea Santangelo, an astrophysicist at the University of TÃ¼bingen in Germany, told Science.

The satellite's instruments are expected to allow the telescope to measure photons across a wider energy spectrum, as well as detect polarization of X-rays for faraway sources. The satellite massive array will help eXTP record measurements with great precision and at high speeds, enabling the instruments to document spectral changes as distant objects rotate.

NASA is currently designing its own next-generation X-ray observatory called Strobe-X.

"These missions will be critical in the era of time-domain astronomy and will be an essential complement to optical, radio, and multi-messenger studies of the most dynamic and energetic processes in the cosmos," said Paul Ray, an astrophysicist at the US Naval Research Laboratory.

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New technology can help scientists peer into deep space
Canberra, Australia (SPX) Feb 20, 2018
A team of Australian scientists, including researchers from The Australian National University (ANU), have found a new way to use the telecommunications network to synchronise radio telescopes, which help scientists peer into deep space. Linking radio telescopes in an array currently requires that each telescope has access to an atomic clock to record the precise time when a signal is detected from an object in space. Co-lead researcher Professor Ken Baldwin from ANU said the team demonstrat ... read more