The Amazing Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)
As of recently, map making has had an explosion of new criteria other than the common world atlas that can be bought at the book store. In today’s day and age, mapping has been trickling into areas that are not as familiar to humans as the common land all around. Maps are delving into the realms of the ocean deep, the humane genome, neuroscience, and even cosmography. Mapping has gotten so advanced that people are now starting to map the universe and our position within it!
With the help of SDSS, humans are beginning to see what the universe actually looks like around them, in real time. A quarter of the the entire sky is being mapped currently by SDSS. Within this mapping of enormous piece of sky, is the location and measurement of brightness of over 100 million celestial objects. Some known to people and some yet to be truly discovered. Through the use of SDSS, quasars are beginning to be monitored. Quasars are the most distant objects in the universe known to man.
Delving Into The Unknown
SDSS is rapidly advancing the amount humans know about the universe around them. In 2006, SDSS found dwarf galaxies other than the Milky Way. Einstein’s prediction of cosmic magnification was confirmed. SDSS also has found the largest known structures in the universe; these structures span over billions of light years across. The amount out there that is still available for the learning is as vast as the universe itself, if not more so.
SDSS is producing better quality images than ever before with any other survey. The reason for this lies in the fact that SDSS uses electric lighting techniques, whereas older surveys used regular photographic effects. The amount of information obtained by the SDSS surpasses that amount of information that the Library of Congress holds within its walls. The approximate amount of information is 15 trillion bytes of data the survey has compiled thus far.
With the rapid income of information via the SDSS, there is a groundbreaking excitement in the air when it comes to astronomic studies. Scientists will be able to use this information for years and years to come. Humans are understanding more now than they ever have before about the universe. What new discoveries will be made, even in the near future, are only on the tip of the SDSS’ metaphorical tongue!