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Standing the Test of Time

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Stars, galaxies, and rainbow-colored vertical lines are scattered across a solid black background. Most of the stars appear as small specks, but some have small diffraction spikes. The galaxies vary in size, shape, and detail. The rainbow-colored vertical lines are heaviest toward the center and top of the frame. Most of them are thin and clearly defined, but some are slightly thicker and brighter with a surrounding glow.

Our staff continue to take a forward-thinking approach when it comes to preserving and accessing telescope data.

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Nineteen Webb images of face-on spiral galaxies are combined in a mosaic. Some appear within squares, and others horizontal or vertical rectangles. Many galaxies have blue hazes toward the centers, and all have orange spiral arms. Many have clear bar shaped-structures at their centers, but a few have spirals that begin at their cores. Some of the galaxies’ arms form clear spiral shapes, while others are more irregular. Some of the galaxies’ arms appear to rotate clockwise and others counterclockwise. Most galaxy cores are centered, but a few appear toward an image’s edge. Most galaxies appear to extend beyond the captured observations. The galaxies shown, listed in alphabetical order, are IC 5332, NGC 628, NGC 1087, NGC 1300, NGC 1365, NGC 1385, NGC 1433, NGC 1512, NGC 1566, NGC 1672, NGC 2835, NGC 3351, NGC 3627, NGC 4254, NGC 4303, NGC 4321, NGC 4535, NGC 5068, and NGC 7496.
In 2024, MAST staff added collections to the cloud, including publicly available observations from the James Webb Space Telescope. These 19 spiral galaxies are from the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) program, which includes images and data from other missions, such as the Hubble Space Telescope.

At the institute’s Barbara A. Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST), our staff help the data move — to the cloud, through online tools, and ultimately to the researchers who actively analyze it. In 2024, the team regularly sought to increase access to current and past missions’ observations by adding new and existing data to the cloud, as well as updating existing resources and building tools to meet current and anticipated user needs.

Throughout the year, our archive staff added even more collections to the cloud, including observations from the James Webb Space Telescope and millions of light curves from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and Kepler/K2 mission. This growth of content in the cloud reduces the need to download the data, providing researchers increased flexibility in how they conduct their research.

The team also paid attention to MAST’s virtual architecture and took particular note of how users access the archive’s data to improve and streamline their experiences. One approach they took to lower barriers and increase accessibility was optimizing an existing data tool called Astroquery. Previously, multiple lines of code were needed to search, filter, and access files on the cloud for any mission in MAST. The team recently condensed multiple functions into one, significantly reducing the amount of code needed, which in turn increased the speed of access and overall convenience for users.

With over 20 missions’ data currently in MAST and the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on the cusp of launch and operations, the institute recognizes that the cloud environment is growing in importance. Over the summer, archive staff offered a workshop series, where astronomical community members participated in hands-on learning experiences. Over a six-week period, attendees accessed the Timeseries Integrated Knowledge Engine (TIKE) while using a Jupyter Notebook to learn how to work in the cloud.

By improving the amount of content in the cloud, and the quantity and quality of tools and resources paired with it, the MAST team is offering new ways for scientists to carry out exciting research in a single place.

A funnel-shaped region of space appears darker than its surroundings with fewer stars. It is wider at the top edge of the image, narrowing towards the bottom. Toward the narrow end of this dark region a small clump of red and white appears to shoot out streamers upward and left. A large, bright cyan-colored area surrounds the lower portion of the funnel-shaped dark area, forming a rough U shape. The cyan-colored area has needle-like, linear structures and becomes more diffuse in the center of the image. The right side of the image is dominated by clouds of orange and red, with a purple haze.
This Webb image reveals an estimated 500,000 stars in this region of Sagittarius C, a portion of the Milky Way galaxy. The telescope’s excellent infrared sensitivity led to it noting previously unknown galaxies behind the dusty center of our galaxy, causing it to periodically fail at locking onto selected guide stars. To resolve this, the team updated the catalog’s foundation, expanding its data to include even more known objects.

All for One and One for All

Webb’s high degree of infrared sensitivity presented a challenge for the Guide Star Catalog earlier this year. The previous catalog release included the precise locations of over a billion stars from a variety of large telescope surveys, including Gaia and Pan-STARRS. Its purpose provides observatories, like Webb and the Hubble Space Telescope, orientation and helps them lock onto the object of study before an observation begins.

Astronomers discovered that due to Webb’s excellent infrared sensitivity, the telescope identified previously unknown galaxies that were now detectable behind the dusty center of our galaxy, which caused it to periodically fail at locking onto selected guide stars. To resolve this, the team updated the catalog’s foundation, expanding its data to include even more known objects. The newest version now contains 3.5 billion sources and became operational in February. Webb’s failure rate was significantly reduced, by a factor of five, saving telescope time and increasing the efficiency of its observations. 

Problem solving and innovation are threads continuously woven into MAST’s work. Another example is the Duplicate Observation Search Tool, which team members built to reduce potential redundancies among proposed and scheduled Webb observations. Through a combination of speed and agility, they designed and deployed the search form before this year’s proposal process, simplifying the work for everyone seeking to use the telescope. As this year’s examples show, with each data upload, tool refinement, and resource, MAST staff are dedicated to supporting the astronomical community.

A horizontal panel of three rectangular images. The leftmost panel is a simulated image and shows a solid black background with sources of light, stars, which vary in size and are sparsely scattered. The middle panel shows a saturated image from Webb’s Fine Guidance Sensor. A dense field of orange-yellow sources of light are placed against the background of space. They vary in size and some have diffraction spikes. The rightmost panel is a simulated image. Against the black background of space, there are many sources of light that vary in size. Some have diffraction spikes.
The MAST team released an updated version of the Guide Star Catalog earlier this year, which Webb and Hubble rely on for accurate pointing, and Roman will also use after it launches. Webb’s high degree of sensitivity resulted in the detection of previously unknown galaxies that appeared behind the dusty center of our galaxy, leading the telescope to more frequently fail at locking onto guide stars correctly. The middle panel shows this problematic level of saturation by Webb’s Fine Guidance Sensor. By adding billions of new guide stars, the newest version has reduced Webb’s failure rate by a factor of five. The right panel is a simulated image, showing the improvement as a result of updating the Guide Star Catalog.

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