Dr. Michael Blanton on Open Data, Galaxy Surveys, and the Future of Astronomy

Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary, this episode is the second interview in our ongoing collaboration series with Carnegie Observatories. Krishna sits down with Dr. Michael Blanton, the new Director of the Carnegie Observatories, for a wide-ranging conversation on how astronomy became one of the most data-rich sciences, how the Sloan Digital Sky Survey helped change the culture around open data, what the next era of astronomical data science and AI could look like, and one of the galaxy mysteries Blanton still wants to solve: why the most massive galaxies in the universe stop forming stars. The conversation starts with Blanton’s Princeton roots and his work connected to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, then moves into the culture of public astronomical data, the NYU Value-Added Galaxy Catalog, Vera Rubin Observatory, Carnegie’s role in the future of astronomy, the Magellan telescopes, astronomical archives, MaNGA and eBOSS, galaxy formation, dark matter, and even the science behind the black hole visualizations in Interstellar. Audio note: this was one of our first out-of-studio interviews, and there are a few minor audio issues in parts of the conversation. We appreciate your patience, and we’ll be better prepared for future field interviews. Also, if you’re in Los Angeles, Krishna will be giving a talk at Exploring Physics at UCLA, hosted by UCLA’s physics outreach organization Continuum, on Saturday, June 6 at the Fowler Museum. His talk runs from 9:30–10:30 AM. Register here: https://luma.com/3al1hj5h Summary Open data changed astronomy — Blanton explains how SDSS helped move astronomy from isolated data ownership toward large public digital sky surveys. Why survey design matters — the episode gets into what it means to know not just what galaxies you saw, but what galaxies you could have seen. Carnegie’s next chapter — Blanton discusses why he came to Carnegie, what makes the Observatories unique, and why enabling science can still require direct scientific judgment. The future is astronomical data science — from Rubin alerts to AI and machine learning, astronomy is increasingly shaped by massive public data sets and the tools needed to use them. A major galaxy mystery remains — why do the most massive galaxies stop forming stars, even when gas appears available?