Mapping the Universe - Mapping Scientific Frontiers: The Quest for Knowledge Visualization - page 69

Fig. 2.21 Slice through the
Universe (Reprinted from
Scientific American,
June 1999)

Fig. 2.22 Flying through in the 3D universe map (Courtesy of http://msowww.anu.edu.au/ )

2.3.3.1 Sloan Digital Sky Survey

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is one of the most ambitious and influential
surveys in the history of astronomy. 2 It is designed to collect astronomical data for
the study of the origin and evolution of the Universe, mapping large-scale structures
in the universe, and the study of quasars and their evolution. According to the
official site of SDSS, SDSS-I (2000-2005) and SDSS-II (2005-2008) covered more
than a quarter of the sky and created three-dimensional maps containing more than
930,000 galaxies and more than 120,000 quasars. SDSS-III is currently in operation
(2008-2014).
Some of the recent discoveries were only possible with the large amount of
data collected by the SDSS survey. For example, astronomers were able to detect

2 http://www.sdss.org/