Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Funded Sloan Digital Sky Survey Will Map The Entire Sky
The next generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-V), directed by Juna Kollmeier of the Carnegie Institution for Science, will move forward with mapping the entire sky following a $16 million grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The grant will kickstart a groundbreaking all-sky spectroscopic survey for a next wave of discovery, anticipated to start in 2020.
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey has been one of the most-successful and influential surveys in the history of astronomy, creating the most-detailed three-dimensional maps of the universe ever made, with deep multi-color images of one third of the sky, and spectra for more than three million astronomical objects.
"For more than 20 years, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey has defined excellence in astronomy," says Paul L. Joskow, President of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. "SDSS-V continues that august tradition by combining cutting-edge research, international collaboration, technological innovation, and cost-effective grassroots governance. The Sloan Foundation is proud to be a core supporter of SDSS-V."
Under Kollmeier's leadership, the survey's fifth generation will build off the earlier SDSS incarnations, but will break new ground by pioneering all-sky observations, and by monitoring over time the changes in a million objects..