Boost for European astronomy
8 Jun 2015 by Evoluted New Media
The European Union has been announced a €15 million investment for astronomers and astrophysicists. The funding will help astronomers tackle big data challenges with the launch of the ASTERICS project, a research infrastructure initiative. The investment will also be used to give the public direct access to some of the astronomy images and data.
Professor Mike Garrett, research leader of the ASTERICS project said: “For the first time, a project brings together the astronomy, astrophysics and particle astrophysics communities to find imaginative new solutions to our common data avalanche problems by working together and directly engaging with industry and specialised businesses.”
The project is led by the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy – ASTRON – and includes 22 European institutions. This investment will help Europe’s world-leading observatories and institutions collaborate to find solutions to big data challenges.
These facilities will be open to the full international community - from professionals to the public.
Dr Stephen Serjeant, Head of Astronomy at The Open University – one of the partner institutions involved in the project – said: “ASTERICS will open up some of the very best of European astronomy to everybody. Crowdsourcing can solve major scientific problems, because the human eye is often much better than computers at recognising and classifying patterns. We are especially pleased to be working with the leading citizen science platform, the Zooniverse.”
