SCUBA-2 All Sky Survey
Encyclopedia
The SCUBA-2 All-Sky Survey (SASSy), is a major astronomical
experiment using the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope
in Hawaii
. A team of around 50 astronomers from the United Kingdom
, Canada
, the United States
, Netherlands
, and Japan
aim to map a huge swathe of the sky to find rare galaxies
and star
s being formed. Contrary to its name, the project will at most only be able to map the sky that is visible from the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii; this counter-intuitive naming has precedents in professional astronomy.
SASSy is one of the major "legacy surveys" on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. It is the second-largest such legacy survey in terms of time on this telescope, and in terms of notional facility time is "worth" over £1 million.
This project will also assist in the foreground subtraction and calibration of the Planck microwave background satellite.
and Open University
respectively), now expanded to a four-person co-ordinating team with the addition of Dr. Tim Jenness and Prof. Douglas Scott (Joint Astronomy Centre
, Hawaii, and University of British Columbia
respectively).
The following institutions are represented in SASSy:
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
experiment using the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope
James Clerk Maxwell Telescope
The James Clerk Maxwell Telescope is a submillimetre-wavelength telescope at Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii. Its primary mirror is 15 metres across: it is the largest astronomical telescope that operates in submillimetre wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum...
in Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
. A team of around 50 astronomers from the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
aim to map a huge swathe of the sky to find rare galaxies
Galaxy
A galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and an important but poorly understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter. The word galaxy is derived from the Greek galaxias , literally "milky", a...
and star
Star
A star is a massive, luminous sphere of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth...
s being formed. Contrary to its name, the project will at most only be able to map the sky that is visible from the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii; this counter-intuitive naming has precedents in professional astronomy.
SASSy is one of the major "legacy surveys" on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. It is the second-largest such legacy survey in terms of time on this telescope, and in terms of notional facility time is "worth" over £1 million.
Scientific goals of SASSy
This project seeks to answer the following questions:- Is there an undiscovered population of extreme luminosity galaxies?
- What are the number counts of bright sub-mm galaxies?
- What is the fraction of lensed sub-mm sources?
- Is there an undiscovered population of cold local galaxies?
- How many infrared dark clouds are there in our Galaxy and how are they distributed?
- What is the relation of infrared dark clouds to star formation and Galactic structure?
- Is there an underlying unknown population of star formation?
- What is the fraction of clustered vs isolated star formation?
- What is the answer to the distributed T-Tauri problem?
This project will also assist in the foreground subtraction and calibration of the Planck microwave background satellite.
Institutions involved
The project was led initially by Dr. Mark Thompson and Dr. Stephen Serjeant (University of HertfordshireUniversity of Hertfordshire
The University of Hertfordshire is a new university based largely in Hatfield, in the county of Hertfordshire, England, from which the university takes its name. It has more than 27,500 students, over 2500 staff, with a turnover of over £181m...
and Open University
Open University
The Open University is a distance learning and research university founded by Royal Charter in the United Kingdom...
respectively), now expanded to a four-person co-ordinating team with the addition of Dr. Tim Jenness and Prof. Douglas Scott (Joint Astronomy Centre
Joint Astronomy Centre
The Joint Astronomy Centre operates British, Canadian and Dutch telescopes at Mauna Kea Observatory, and provides support for other telescopes and public outreach activities...
, Hawaii, and University of British Columbia
University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley...
respectively).
The following institutions are represented in SASSy:
- Cardiff UniversityCardiff UniversityCardiff University is a leading research university located in the Cathays Park area of Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom. It received its Royal charter in 1883 and is a member of the Russell Group of Universities. The university is consistently recognised as providing high quality research-based...
, UK - European Space AgencyEuropean Space AgencyThe European Space Agency , established in 1975, is an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to the exploration of space, currently with 18 member states...
- Herzberg Institute of AstrophysicsHerzberg Institute of AstrophysicsThe NRC Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics is the leading Canadian centre for astronomy and astrophysics.Named for the Nobel laureate Gerhard Herzberg, it was formed in 1975 as part of the National Research Council of Canada in Ottawa, Ontario...
/ NRC, Canada - Imperial College LondonImperial College LondonImperial College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom, specialising in science, engineering, business and medicine...
, UK - Japan Aerospace Exploration AgencyJapan Aerospace Exploration AgencyThe , or JAXA, is Japan's national aerospace agency. Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on October 1, 2003, as an Independent Administrative Institution administered by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology and the...
, Japan - Joint Astronomy CentreJoint Astronomy CentreThe Joint Astronomy Centre operates British, Canadian and Dutch telescopes at Mauna Kea Observatory, and provides support for other telescopes and public outreach activities...
, Hawaii, USA - Kapteyn Astronomical InstituteKapteyn Astronomical InstituteThe Kapteyn Astronomical Institute is the department of astronomy of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.The institute is named after its founder, Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn, who lived from 1851 to 1922. Jacobus Kapteyn was appointed professor of astronomy and theoretical mechanics in...
, The Netherlands - Keele UniversityKeele UniversityKeele University is a campus university near Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire, England. Founded in 1949 as an experimental college dedicated to a broad curriculum and interdisciplinary study, Keele is most notable for pioneering the dual honours degree in Britain...
, UK - Liverpool John Moores UniversityLiverpool John Moores UniversityLiverpool John Moores University is a British 'modern' university located in the city of Liverpool, England. The university is named after John Moores and was previously called Liverpool Mechanics' School of Arts and later Liverpool Polytechnic before gaining university status in 1992, thus...
, UK - Open UniversityOpen UniversityThe Open University is a distance learning and research university founded by Royal Charter in the United Kingdom...
, UK - Rutherford Appleton LaboratoryRutherford Appleton LaboratoryThe Rutherford Appleton Laboratory is one of the national scientific research laboratories in the UK operated by the Science and Technology Facilities Council . It is located on the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus at Chilton near Didcot in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom...
, UK - SRONSrònSròn is the Scottish Gaelic word for nose and is the name of some hills in the Scottish Highlands. Before the abolition of the acute accent in Scottish Gaelic, it was sometimes spelt as srón...
, The Netherlands - UK Astronomy Technology CentreUK Astronomy Technology CentreThe UK Astronomy Technology Centre is based at the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh, Scotland, and is part of the Science and Technology Facilities Council....
, UK - Université LavalUniversité LavalLaval University is the oldest centre of education in Canada and was the first institution in North America to offer higher education in French...
, Canada - University College LondonUniversity College LondonUniversity College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...
, UK - University of British ColumbiaUniversity of British ColumbiaThe University of British Columbia is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley...
, Canada - University of CambridgeUniversity of CambridgeThe University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
, UK - University of EdinburghUniversity of EdinburghThe University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...
, UK - University of ExeterUniversity of ExeterThe University of Exeter is a public university in South West England. It belongs to the 1994 Group, an association of 19 of the United Kingdom's smaller research-intensive universities....
, UK - University of HertfordshireUniversity of HertfordshireThe University of Hertfordshire is a new university based largely in Hatfield, in the county of Hertfordshire, England, from which the university takes its name. It has more than 27,500 students, over 2500 staff, with a turnover of over £181m...
, UK - University of KentUniversity of KentThe University of Kent, previously the University of Kent at Canterbury, is a public research university based in Kent, United Kingdom...
, UK - University of St AndrewsUniversity of St AndrewsThe University of St Andrews, informally referred to as "St Andrews", is the oldest university in Scotland and the third oldest in the English-speaking world after Oxford and Cambridge. The university is situated in the town of St Andrews, Fife, on the east coast of Scotland. It was founded between...
, UK - University of WaterlooUniversity of WaterlooThe University of Waterloo is a comprehensive public university in the city of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The school was founded in 1957 by Drs. Gerry Hagey and Ira G. Needles, and has since grown to an institution of more than 30,000 students, faculty, and staff...
, Canada
See also
- Infrared astronomyInfrared astronomyInfrared astronomy is the branch of astronomy and astrophysics that studies astronomical objects visible in infrared radiation. The wavelength of infrared light ranges from 0.75 to 300 micrometers...
- Submillimetre astronomySubmillimetre astronomySubmillimetre astronomy or submillimeter astronomy is the branch of observational astronomy that is conducted at submillimetre wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum. Astronomers place the submillimetre waveband between the far-infrared and microwave wavebands, typically taken to be between a...
- Far infrared astronomyFar infrared astronomyFar-infrared astronomy is the branch of astronomy and astrophysics that deals with objects visible in far-infrared radiation ....
- Radio astronomyRadio astronomyRadio astronomy is a subfield of astronomy that studies celestial objects at radio frequencies. The initial detection of radio waves from an astronomical object was made in the 1930s, when Karl Jansky observed radiation coming from the Milky Way. Subsequent observations have identified a number of...