Michael Blanton discusses plans for public alerts from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory as part of astronomy's wider move toward accessible data. Speaking with Krishna Choudhary, he explains why sharing observations can attract new scientific questions and contributions from data scientists.
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8:35sort of argument I thought that that argument was won once and for all. >> Right. >> Uh but it was not. It has It has to be re-argued, you know, almost every project. >> Yeah. >> So that was surprising to me cuz it seems so natural. I don't know if that answered your question. >> No, totally, totally. And I think you know, modern astronomy has definitely changed a lot, right? Because I mean, with the Vera Rubin that's coming online, that's very similar in that sense. The the data's going to get fed to whatever server very, very quickly as soon as the telescope takes that photo, right? >> I uh yes. So the So for Rubin, you know, as soon as they you know, a-
9:18you know, as soon as they get the data, they will be sending out alerts publicly. Right. Sometime this year they'll probably start. Uh and those will be fully public. And then the data itself eventually becomes uh uh public and and will be distributed to the the partners. >> Yeah, yeah. I think that that's a really cool thing about um astronomy that I think other sciences have not totally gotten to where astronomy has, you know, in terms of just public distribution of data. I think that's that that's something that other sciences can probably learn from. >> I I I think so. It's helpful, and this is one of the reasons I think that people who work in data science and
10:00machine learning and what have you, I think really like working in astronomy as >> sort of a sandbox. >> Yeah, I mean, it's a sandbox data, I mean, it's like our livelihood. I I But um I think I think the reason they they like that is actually there is a lot of public data, and there's no privacy issues. >> Right. >> So, it's it's sort of uh There are many, you know, it's like there are many sciences where it's a legitimate problem if the data becomes available. Like in the social sciences, it's not so easy. >> Totally, yeah. Um in the neurosciences, too, if you're dealing with human data, but you know, there's a place called Allen Brain Institute in Washington. They're publishing a lot of, you know,
10:41mouse and um rodent data freely available, and that's sort of changed um >> The mice are unlikely to sue. >> Yes, yes, very much so. Um you know,
AstronomyAstrophysicsOpen DataCosmology