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Aladin, an open-source interactive tool that enables open science

Buga, Mihaela

Publisher
Zenodo
DOI
10.5281/zenodo.17749508
Repository
zenodo.org
Language
en

Abstract

The Aladin service is an open-source interactive sky atlas developed at CDS to facilitate the access, visualization, and analysis of large volumes of heterogeneous astronomical data. Aladin serves as a unified portal for exploring published data provided by the CDS and by the Virtual Observatory community. It enables the community to use this large volume of data fully in the spirit of open science. The amount of data served by the Aladin has grown to ~1Pb and represents an important set of reference data for the community. The content is built by highly skilled information specialists who curate data coming from sky surveys and the refereed scientific literature. The data curation process adds value through well-defined procedures that enrich it with metadata, and makes it available through the standard IVOA HiPS protocol. The interactive application and web versions of Aladin users can simultaneously explore data across various wavelengths, epochs, and resolutions. Images, catalogues, and well-characterized astronomical objects are made accessible within just a few clicks via a user-friendly digital sky interface. This makes Aladin a powerful tool for data-driven research and discovery in astronomy. This presentation will highlight the process of data curation and how this enables open science.

Full text

Aladin, an open-source interactive tool that enables open science LISA X Santiago, November 2025 Buga Mihaela [email protected] On the behalf of CDS © Aladin Sky Atlas 2/31 © Aladin Sky Atlas 3/31 © Aladin Sky Atlas 4/31 Data tree View Stack Measures © Aladin Sky Atlas 6/31 View © Aladin Sky Atlas 7/31 ➢Complementarity between image, bibliographical and catalog data ➢HiPS standard for storing and exploring large data ➢Pixel data ingestions workflow at CDS ➢Demo Aladin, a gateway to global astronomical data exploration 8/31 Aladin → visualizing the sky in context Data issued from international collaborations ●Publications ●Satellites and ground-based telescopes Hubble © NASA Gaia © ESA VLT ©atacamaphoto.com CFHT © Jean-Charles List of processed journals.: →1st priority.: A&A, AJ, ApJ, ApJS, MNRAS+L, Nature, NatAs, PASJ+S, PASP, Sci →2ndpriority.:AcA, AN, ARep, AstBu, AstL, Atel, GCN, OEJV, RAA, RNAAS, JAVSO Exemples of astronomical surveys : AKARI, ACT, EGRET, Euclid, Fermi, Gaia, GALEX, HESS, HST, IRIS, JWST, MATLAS, PLANK, SCUBA, Skymapper, SPITZER, SDSS,VISTA, ZTF, WISE CUILLANDRE I. Complementarity between bibliographical, catalog and image data ●Services 20,200,439 objects 69,288,927 identifiers 453,944 bibliographic references I. Complementarity between bibliographical, catalog and image data Superimposing catalogues and databases © Aladin Sky Atlas Multi view of NGC 4535 I. Complementarity between bibliographical, catalog and image data 18/31 Sky surveys multi view ●Developed at CDS since 2009 ●IVOA standard since 2017 ●Sky image mosaic.: ●Data storage.: ●hierarchical tiles ●Data is organised into HEALPix maps of different orders ●The sphere is zoomable, astronomical data is accessible at different resolutions ●HiPS list (~ 1 Petabyte).: https://aladin.cds.unistra.fr/hips/list Hierarchical Progressive Survey standard II. HiPS standard 19/31 III. Pixel data ingestion workflow ●Main steps.: Step 1.: The selection of sky surveys to be processed Step 2.: HiPS generation using the HiPSgen Tool Step 3.: Metadata description Step 4.: HiPS publication and dissemination ●Generation time.: from a few hours to several months ●Volume.: ●from a few megabytes to tens of terabytes ●the DESI (Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument) Legacy Survey, cover half of the sky, for 40 TB per band HiPS curation process 20/31 Data curators Software engineers Research Scientists https://portal.nersc.gov/cfs/cosmo/data/legacysurvey/dr5/coadd/ https://www.legacysurvey.org/dr5/description/ Step 1.: The selection of sky surveys to be processed III. Pixel data ingestion workflow 21/31 Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey DECaLS DR5 https://portal.nersc.gov/cfs/cosmo/data/legacysurvey/dr5/coadd/ https://www.legacysurvey.org/dr5/description/ III. Pixel data ingestion workflow 21/31 Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey DECaLS DR5 732,034 images 1.6 T/band, 2 days FITS (Flexible Image Transport System) standard format for images in astronomy Step 1.: The selection of sky surveys to be processed III. Pixel data ingestion workflow WCS (World Coordinate System) key words for astrometric calibration. FITS file header Hipsgen tool with various parameters and actions + Step 2.: HiPS generation with the HiPSgen tool Original sky survey HiPS generation process Sky images in HiPS format ●HiPS description: identifier, title, description ●Original data: ●source, rights, bibliography ●wavelength, observation period ●observed sky area, original resolutions ●HiPS calculation.: ●Hipsgen version and processing history ●creation and update dates, people, rights ●various technical elements ●default field of view ●... Step 3.: Metadata description III. Pixel data ingestion workflow https://aladin.cds.unistra.fr/hips/HipsgenManual.pdf Step 4.: HiPS publication and dissemination III. Pixel data ingestion workflow 28/31 © Aladin Sky Atlas ●Used by CDS and by international data centers (ESA, ESO, NASA, ...), space missions (Euclid, Rubin,...), outreach (DIGISTAR, Stellarium ) © sky.esa.int © © Aladin Sky Atlas © Aladin Sky Atlas © Aladin Sky Atlas III. Pixel data ingestion workflow 29/31 Step 4.: HiPS publication and dissemination Tools and web pages integrating Aladin Lite2: https://aladin.cds.unistra.fr/AladinLite/doc/sites-using-aladin-lite/ https://science.nasa.gov/ https://archive.eso.org/scienceportal/home ●Fast access to large volumes of various data.: ●2D and 3D sky images ●Density and flux maps ●Planetary surfaces ●Metadata associated with the HiPS survey ●Access to original data ●Color HiPS ●Various types of HiPS.: ●pointed outreach images ●a fraction of the sky or all sky images ●Selection of elements to highlight ●Pixel dynamic range management Added value.: original sky survey vs. HiPS III. Pixel data ingestion workflow © Aladin Sky Atlas