ASTRON Hackathon

Introduction

Please note registration for this event is now closed. Thank you to everyone that applied. We had an over-subscription factor of 2.1, so lots of interest from a broad range of backgrounds.

We are entering a new era of astronomy with the massive radio telescope, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), coming online in next five years. The SKA will generate around 160 TB (10¹² bytes) of data per second, which is more than 5 times the current global internet traffic.

Such an immense data rate presents unparalleled challenges to astronomical and information technology communities in terms of data storage, transport, exploration, and accessibility. We need to solve these data challenges so astronomers can translate this data into groundbreaking science on topics such as the Universe's evolution, the formation of the very first galaxies, and the search for extraterrestrial life.

Current radio astronomy is also pushing the limits of our technology. A precursor to the SKA, the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) telescope, produces 300 TB of data per month. Currently there is over 25 PB of data in distributed storage. A data volume comparable to the storage required by data intensive technology giants such as Google.

Enormous LOFAR data rate is already presenting interesting challenges such as science platforms used by scientists, access to super-computers with >1 petaflops of processing power, movement of data, and development of different machine learning algorithms to investigate the data. Confronting and surmounting such challenges can result in incredible scientific returns.

Our vision is to empower astronomers with a platform where they can move, reduce and rapidly sift through millions of celestial objects and find brilliant outliers without ever worrying about where and how the data are located and stored. These are significant challenges, whose solutions will impact rest of the information technology community.

In this hackathon we aspire to bring together expertise in areas such as data engineering, data mining, cloud, machine learning, and data visualisation etc. from both astronomy and coding community. Together we can find innovative solutions to interesting astronomical data issues using LOFAR data as a test bed. Will you accept the challenge?

Participants

Participants

Program

Program for Day 1

Program for Day 2

Logistics

Location

The hackathon would be held at ASTRON's main headquarters located in Lhee, near Dwingeloo, the Netherlands.

Transportation

Drive/Bike - Different routes to access ASTRON are detailed here. Note that the scheduled shuttle bus will see you arrive too late for the start of the Hackathon on Monday.
Taxi - If you prefer a taxi from Hoogeveen railway station to ASTRON, please send us an email. A taxi costs Eur 31,00 per ride, so it is advisable to share. Taxis are not always available at the station so we suggest pre-booking with the secretaries of ASTRON.

Accommodation

Dinner Monday 23 April 19:00 hrs

Venue: De Bospub, Bosrand 18, 7991 PD Lhee.
De Bospub is close to ASTRON and Fletcher hotel De Borken (in between).
Directions to the venue from ASTRON can be found here.
Menu: pannenkoeken buffet.

contact

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Email
• Instagram

Elements

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    i++;
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