This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), the largest multispectral imaging and spectroscopic redshift survey of the cosmos, has released its 20th data release (DR 20). It is also the third release of the survey's fifth phase (SDSS-V), representing a massive operational expansion of the legacy established with prior releases.
This milestone provides an unprecedented look at the stars, the interstellar medium (ISM) and distant galaxies that make up the cosmos. By mapping the local and distant universe, astronomers and cosmologists hope to gain a better understanding of the physical processes governing the cosmos. When it began in 2000, the SDSS was an optical and spectral survey of the Northern Hemisphere conducted solely by the 2.5-meter Sloan Foundation Telescope.
This latest release has accelerated the SDSS's transition into a massive international project of multiwavelength, multiepoch optical and infrared observations of both hemispheres by multiple observatories. DR20 contains multiple catalogs of objects such as black holes, stars and interstellar gas, along with imagery and tools for navigating the massive data set. It also expands SDSS's efforts by delivering the first optical spectra from the Southern Hemisphere, all-sky panoptic spectroscopy from both hemispheres and part of the panoptic spectroscopic map planned for the ongoing SDSS-V survey.
Like previous data releases, DR20 includes newly reduced spectroscopic data from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) obtained through Feb. 2, 2025, from both hemispheres, combined with spectroscopic data from all previous SDSS phases. The arXiv preprint of the official academic record appeared July 30 in the Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series. Anne-Marie Weijmans, a researcher at the University of St Andrews and the SDSS data products coordinator, said in an SDSS press release, "We want everyone to make use of the SDSS data products, whether they are a professional astronomer doing their research, a student learning how to work with data, a teacher looking for classroom material, or someone who is just interested in astronomy in general.
"That is why we have so many different platforms for people to interact with the data, and we take care to provide numerous examples and tutorials for each of these. The data should not just be publicly available but be publicly usable." "This data release provides some spectacular SDSS-V data that we are sure people will make excellent use of," added Dr. Juna Kollmeier, a staff scientist at Carnegie Science and the director of SDSS-V.
"But we aren't stopping here. We just spent a week talking about what will go into DR21 and DR22! We're going to need bigger computers!" Among the many items featured in the new release are the aforementioned first SDSS-V stellar and extragalactic optical spectra of the Southern Hemisphere, taken as part of BOSS.
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