2009/05/13 by AJ Lawrence, Lawrence, A.
Decision Sciences · #FOS: Physical sciences #Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM) #Scientific Computing and Data Management
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.0905.2020
openalex publication_date 2009/05/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Astronomical datasets are growing in size and diversity, posing severe technical problems. At the same time scientific goals increasingly require the analysis of very large amounts of data, and data from multiple archives. The Virtual Observatory (VO) initiative aims to make multiwavelength science and large database science as seamless as possible. It can be seen as the latest stage of a long term trend towards standardisation and collectivisation in astronomy. Within this inevitable trend, we can avoid the high energy style of building large fixed hierarchical teams, and keep the individualist style of astronomical research, if the VO is used to build a facility class data infrastructure. I describe how the VO works and how it may change in the Web 2.0 era.