Home > 2MASS

Observations for the Two Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS) began in 1997 and were completed in 20012001 is a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar), and also: The International Year of the Volunteer The United Nations Year of Dialogue Among Civilizations Events January January 1 A black monolith measuring approximately nine feet tall ap at two telescopeNice Observatory. A telescope is perhaps the most important astronomical tool; such technology gathers (and focuses) electromagnetic radiation. Telescopes increase the apparent angular size of objects, as well as their apparent brightness. Galileo Galileis located one each in the northern and southern hemisphereThe term hemisphere is used in three different meanings: one-half of the Earth (or other planetary or stellar body; see also New World and Old World) Eastern Hemisphere and Western Hemisphere. Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere. A land hemispheres (Mt. Hopkins ArizonaArizona was the 48th state admitted to the United States and is part of the Southwest United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, south and east of the Colorado River, bordering New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, California and Mexico. Its major cities ar and Cerro Tololo/CTIO ChileThe word chile may also refer to Chilli pepper. The Republic of Chile is a republic located on the southwestern coast of South America. It is a long and narrow piece of land between the Andes mountains and the Pacific Ocean. It shares borders with Argenti, respectively) to ensure coverage of the entire sky. The most ambitious project to map the night sky to date, the final (post-processing) data release for 2MASS occurred in 20032003 is a common year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar), and also: The International Year of Freshwater The European Disability Year Summary Perhaps the defining global event of the year 2003 was the Invasion of Iraq launched by the U. The whole sky was covered in three infraredInfrared IR radiation is electromagnetic radiation of a wavelength longer than visible light, but shorter than microwave radiation. The name means "below red" (from the Latin infra "below"), red being the color of visible light of longest wavelength. wavebands around 2 m (micrometres), J (1.25 m), H (1.65 m), and K_s (2.17 m).

The goals of this survey included:

• Detection of galaxies in the " zone of avoidanceThe Zone of Avoidance is the area of the night sky that is obscured by our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Dust and stars in the plane of the Milky Way (the galactic plane) obstruct our view of around 20% of the extragalactic sky at optical wavelengths. As a r," a strip of sky obscured in visible light by our own Galaxy, the Milky Way.
• First detection of brown dwarfs.
• An extensive survey of low mass stars, the most common type of star both in our own galaxy and others.
• Cataloging of all detected stars and galaxies.

This last goal has been admirably achieved. Numerical descriptions of point sources ( stars, planets, asteroids) and extended sources ( galaxies, nebulae) were catalogued by automated computer programs to an average limiting magnitude of about 14. More than 300 million point sources and 1 million extended sources were catalogued. In November of 2003, a team of scientists announced the discovery of the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy, at that time the closest known satellite galaxy to the milky way, based on analysis of 2MASS stellar data.

The resulting data and images from the survey are currently in the public domain, and may be accessed online for free by anyone at [1] (although interpretation and use of this data may require an advanced degree ). There is also a list of 2MASS science publications with links to free pre-publication copies of the papers.

2MASS is sponsored by the University of Massachusetts (aka UMass, and the origin of the survey name), the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center ( IPAC , run by JPL and Caltech), NASA, and the NSF.