The Big Picture: Science from Astronomical Surveys

press release: Lecture by Keith Bechtol, UW Department of Physics

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), now under construction in Chile, will image the entire southern sky nearly a thousand times over the next decade. LSST is an example of astronomical surveys that map as much of the sky as possible as quickly as possible in order to make a statistical census of the cosmos. The recent technologies that make such surveys possible will generate rich datasets for exploring the universe.