The Sloan Digital Sky Survey

Abstract

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is making a multi-colour, three dimensional map of the nearby Universe. The survey is in two parts. The first part is imaging one quarter of the sky in five colours from the near ultraviolet to the near infrared. In this imaging survey we expect to detect around 50 million galaxies to a magnitude limit g ~ 23. The second part of the survey, taking place concurrently with the imaging, is obtaining spectra for up to 1 million galaxies and 100,000 quasars. From these spectra we obtain redshifts and hence distances, in order to map out the three-dimensional distribution of galaxies and quasars in the Universe. These observations will be used to constrain models of cosmology and of galaxy formation and evolution. This article describes the goals and methods used by the SDSS, the current status of the survey, and highlights some exciting discoveries made from data obtained in the first two years of survey operations.

20 pages, review to appear in Contemporary Physics

References in corpus (13)

• The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: Spectra and redshifts
• Spectroscopic Target Selection in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: The Main Galaxy Sample
• The u'g'r'i'z' Standard Star Network
• Spectroscopic Target Selection for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: The Luminous Red Galaxy Sample
• Spectroscopic Target Selection in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: The Quasar Sample
• A Survey of z>5.8 Quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey I: Discovery of Three New Quasars and the Spatial Density of Luminous Quasars at z~6
• The Ghost of Sagittarius and Lumps in the Halo of the Milky Way
• A photometricity and extinction monitor at the Apache Point Observatory
• Galaxy Clustering in Early SDSS Redshift Data
• Solar System Objects Observed in the SDSS Commissioning Data
• Characterization of M,L and T dwarfs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• The 3D Power Spectrum from Angular Clustering of Galaxies in Early SDSS Data
• The Angular Power Spectrum of Galaxies from Early SDSS Data

Cited by in corpus (15)

• Scaling Laws in the Distribution of Galaxies
• Finding Evidence for Massive Neutrinos using 3D Weak Lensing
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• Do WMAP data favor neutrino mass and a coupling between Cold Dark Matter and Dark Energy?
• Higher neutrino mass allowed if Cold Dark Matter and Dark Energy are coupled
• Indirect Search for Dark Matter in M31 with the CELESTE Experiment
• Constraints on Quintessence From Using Cosmological Data
• Gravitational Lensing Constraints on Dynamical and Coupled Dark Energy
• Dynamical Dark Energy model parameters with or without massive neutrinos
• Bivariate luminosity-HI mass distribution function of galaxies based on the NIBLES survey
• Sky surveys and deep fields of ground-based and space telescopes
• Neutrino Mass
• The Large Scale Structure in the Universe: From Power-Laws to Acoustic Peaks
• The NIBLES bivariate luminosity--HI mass distribution function revised using Arecibo follow-up observations
• Modular Architecture for High-Performance and Low Overhead Data Transfers