Chinese Virtual Observatory

On 13 Oct., Yan Jun and Hu Xiaoming, as the director of National Astronomical Observatory of China and president of Aliyun Cloud Computing Co., Ltd. respectively, together announced the news of their strategic cooperation in the 2016 Computing Conference hold in Hangzhou. Both will take full advantage of the strength of the partners in their respective areas to carry out cooperation in interdisciplinary research and application to improve basic scientific research capabilities in astronomy and to extend the application of latest research results of cloud computing in advanced scientific fields.

 
The scene photo in the press conference

Yan Jun (the director of National Astronomical Observatory) spoke in the conference

 
Hu Xiaoming (the president of Aliyun Cloud Computing Co., Ltd) spoke in the conference.

The Large Sky Area Multi-object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) has observed more than five million celestial spectra since its operation in 2009. The spectra number exceeds the total number observed by other telescopes in the world, and it is the largest spectra database in the world.

 Large Sky Area Multi-object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST)

Five hundred meters Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) is known as “The Eye of Heaven”. It is the largest diameter and most sensitive radio telescope in the world. About 50TB observation data will be generated every day when formal scientific observation starts.

Five hundred meters Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST)

Big data not only provides broad prospects for astronomy discoveries and innovation, but also brings many technical challenges, which covers the whole life cycle of data, including collection, transmission, storage, process, analysis and open access.
As strategic partners, National Astronomical Observatory of China (NAOC) and Aliyun is planning to establish “NAOC-Aliyun big data joint research center”. They will immigrate the Chinese Virtual Observatory onto Aliyun platform to enhance the full lifecycle astronomy big data management and open access platform, develop cloud-based astronomy software and service, promote data driven astronomical science education and share the digital universe with the public through the Internet, and carry out deep cooperation of Big Data technology and application in the field of optical astronomy, radio astronomy, numerical simulation, data mining, etc.

 
Chinese Visual Observatory

The cooperation between National Astronomy Observatory and Aliyun is the interdisciplinary fusion of scientific big data, cloud resource and a wealth of information technology. It also plays leading and demonstration role in wider field while bringing great achievements in astronomy.

 
The blueprint

With the aid of deep technology deposition and rich resource of Aliyun, Chinese Virtual Observatory will be built to be an “Internet+” Big Data environment with 100 Gb bandwidth, EB storage and tens of thousands of CPU cores computing ability, so as to improve Chinese e-Science level and to escort the astronomy front research and big data application.