This Echo is READ ONLY !   NO Un-Authorized Messages Please!
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov 

Contact:  Jane Platt  (818) 354-0880

NEWS RELEASE:  2003-041                                               
March 27, 2003

The Sky's the Limit: Grand Finale for Twin-Telescope Survey

The celestial harvest from astronomy's most thorough high-resolution
digital survey of the entire sky, completed by twin infrared
telescopes, is now online for scientists to scrutinize and the entire
world to savor.

An atlas of about 5 million pictures from the grand finale of this
milestone in modern astronomy is available at
http://www.ipac.caltech.edu/2mass/gallery .  

"The public will 'ooooh and aaaah' at the pictures, while scientists
will mine the data for decades, learning a great deal more than we
currently know about our Milky Way galaxy, its hundreds of millions
of stars, and the millions of galaxies in the nearby universe," said
Dr. Michael Skrutskie, principal investigator for the Two Micron
All-Sky Survey.  Skrutskie, with the University of Virginia,
Charlottesville, was formerly with the University of Massachusetts,
Amherst. 

"This survey will change the way astronomy is conducted and the types
of experiments that can be carried out, because astronomers can now
sit at their desk and have data for any spot on the sky literally at
their fingertips without going to a telescope," said Dr. Roc Cutri,
the survey's project scientist at the Infrared Processing and
Analysis Center of the California Institute of Technology and NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.  "It also makes astronomy
more open to the public, providing beautiful pictures and serving as
a powerful educational tool."

The survey was conducted at infrared wavelengths, which are longer
than the red light our eyes can see. Infrared wavelengths penetrate
dust better than visible light, making them an effective tool for
detecting dust-obscured objects both inside and outside of our Milky
Way.

"For the first time in history, we can, in effect, step outside our
galaxy and see it in detail, as it would appear from above,"
Skrutskie said.  "We can also see the texture in the distribution of
galaxies outside the Milky Way.  Before this survey, astronomers
tried to connect the dots, but nearly one-third of the galaxies were
obscured by dust.  Now, we can connect all the dots."

"The idea of a survey is an old human activity, but the Two Micron
All-Sky Survey has a modern twist," said Project Manager Rae Stiening
at the University of Massachusetts.  "Just as English admiralty sent
Captain Cook and others to map the world, this new survey has mapped
the nearby universe."
The project used two dedicated 1.3-meter (51-inch) telescopes, one at
Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory, Mount Hopkins, Ariz., the other at
the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. Operations
began in Arizona in June 1997 and in Chile in March 1998. Since
observations concluded in February 2001, scientists have been
processing and validating data to complete the analysis of the entire
sky.  The atlas was compiled from 120 million images containing 14
trillion pixels, or data measurements.  The survey produced
catalogues brimming with nearly half a billion objects.

The bonanza of astronomical discoveries already made by the survey
includes:

- Hundreds of brown dwarfs, or cool, failed stars; enabling
scientists to define new classes of stars
- Maps of the Milky Way's structure and dust distribution, and
large-scale structure in the nearby universe, inside and outside our
Milky Way
- Observations of galaxies hidden behind the disc of the Milky Way
- Details about the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the
Milky Way
- Numerous dust-obscured galaxies and quasars in the distant universe
- The largest database ever of location, brightness, color and
position of asteroids

For the next two years, scientists will conduct an extended Two
Micron All-Sky Survey mission, reviewing and delivering more content
of the raw data to the public.  They will also process and release
more sensitive observations made during the survey, including images
of the entire Large and Small Magellanic clouds.  "A lot of great
stuff that will be discovered with this survey hasn't been conceived
of yet," Stiening said.  "The best is yet to come."

By identifying interesting targets, finding stars for calibration and
providing data analysis techniques, the survey's data will be a boon
to future infrared space missions, including NASA's Space Infrared
Telescope Facility, scheduled for launch in April.

The Two Micron All-Sky Survey is a collaboration between the
University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis
Center.  The Center developed the software system that converted the
nearly 25 terabytes of raw digital data into images and catalogues.
The University of Massachusetts was responsible for design,
construction and operation of the survey cameras and telescopes.  The
project was first proposed in 1991 by Dr. Susan Kleinmann at the
University of Massachusetts, and the Center director at that time,
Dr. Charles Beichman.  Previous infrared sky surveys by Caltech
include the first such survey, by Drs. Robert Leighton and Gerry
Neugebauer, and the first all-sky survey from space, by the Infrared
Astronomical Satellite.  JPL is a division of Caltech.

The survey is primarily funded by NASA's Office of Space Science,
Washington, D.C., with additional funding provided by the National
Science Foundation. 

Additional information about 2MASS is available at
http://www.ipac.caltech.edu/2mass and
http://pegasus.astro.umass.edu/GradProg/2mass.html .

--end--

 - END OF FILE -
==========

@Message posted automagically by IMTHINGS POST 1.30
---