Projects

Data Science Systems

  • EuclidDPS+DSS, to do science with Euclid’s 3D map of the Universe at HST-like resolution. Launch in September 2022
  • Euclid Science Data Center Netherlands, the Dutch contribution to Euclid’s survey production and scientific exploitation platform. Performing scientific challenge #8 now.
  • AstroWISE, doing science for ESO and ESA with a dozen astronomical telescopes, since 2003
  • MuseWISE, doing science with the most powerful IFU in the world, since 2014
  • MicadoWISE, doing science with a football-stadium sized telescope, coming in 2025

Astronomical Instrumentation

  • The Euclid on board ESA’s Euclid satellite, covering 15000 square degrees of extragalactic sky from space. To be launched by ESA in 2022. Primary science driver is understanding the accelerated expansion of the Universe. I am co-lead of the Organizational Unit External Data, responsible for preparing and processing all data external to this mission that needs to combined with the Euclid satellite data.
  • MICADO at ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope is the First-Light near-infrared imager and spectrograph for ESO’s European Extremely Large Telescope. I am leading the BasicMicadoWISE workpackage in the MICADO instrument consortium.
  • MUSE at ESO’s the Very Large Telescope
  • OmegaCAM at ESO/INAF’s VLT Survey Telescope

Astronomical Surveys

  • Euclid Survey
  • The Kilo-Degree Survey is a 1500 square degrees imaging survey with exquisite image quality from ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile. The primary science driver is dark matter tomography, but the data is useful for many other science projects. For example, I’ve used the survey to find high-redshift quasars far away in the early Universe and asteroids and comets nearby in the Solar System.

Expertise Centers

  • Kapteyn Astronomical Institute
  • OmegaCEN at the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute of the University of Groningen is an expertise and data center for data-intensive astronomy. The center designs, builds and operates advanced data handling systems for data-intensive astronomical instruments. We make use of our own-developed WISE technology to build information systems with extreme ”backward chaining”. They link all information contained in final products back to the ”raw” initial data. The goal is to be able to disentangle with extreme precision and accuracy the astrophysical information and instrumental fingerprint in large datasets obtained with complex instruments. I am deputy lead of OmegaCEN. Projects that use the WISE technology:
  • Donald Smits Center for Information Technology
  • Data Science and Systems Complexity research group

Astrophysical influences on the long-term habitability of Earth

A list of small research projects I supervise which are relevant for a better understanding of astrophysical influences on the long-term habitability of Earth. They piggyback on my work on the AstroWISE data science system and those for Euclid and MICADO.

  • precision astrometry and photometry of Near-Earth Asteroids with MICADO at the ELT
  • precovery of asteroids with elevated impact risks through re-use of astronomical imaging surveys
  • Solar System Object detection in astronomical imaging surveys using convolutional neural networks
  • Climate change & nearby stellar encounters using Euclid & Gaia

WeAreCruiseShipEarth

  • WeAreCruiseShipEarth is a non-profit organisation that sells Earth to raise funding for research into the long-term future habitability of that planetary cruise ship. I contribute with my expertise on the astrophysical limits to that habitability. Please visit WeAreCruiseShipEarth.org.

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