Troy, N.Y. — Heidi Newberg, associate professor of physics and astronomy at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, is chairing the science working group of a new project focused on mapping the Milky Way Galaxy’s structure and stellar makeup and compiling data on its origins and evolution.

The recently announced Milky Way survey project, the Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration (SEGUE), is one of three new projects included in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey II (SDSS-II), a three-year extension of a scientific undertaking that will complete the largest survey of the universe.

Newberg will lead the scientific efforts of a collaborative group of researchers from 18 institutions around the world who are working on the SEGUE project.

“The SEGUE project will allow us for the first time to get a ‘big picture’ of the Milky Way Galaxy,” said Newberg. “Even the basic stellar components of the Milky Way are not yet understood in depth. Our coordinated effort to study the ages, chemical composition, and distribution of stars in our galaxy will yield major clues in understanding how our own galaxy and other galaxies formed.”   

As part of SEGUE, researchers will record and analyze data from 4,000 square degrees of imaging by high-powered telescopes to yield positioning information on tens of millions of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. More detailed information will be compiled on 240,000 stars in the galaxy by using each star’s spectra to identify properties such as age, velocity, and chemical composition. Data from completed SDSS projects also will be utilized to complement the SEGUE data.

Newberg said the SEGUE project will generate images, spectra, and associated data for use in follow-up work or as input data for space-based or large Earth-based telescopes. “SEGUE is the largest survey in operation that strives to map the large-scale distribution of stars in the Milky Way,” she said. “We will use the information we obtain about the stars to create a more accurate 3-D representation of our galaxy.” 

Newberg’s current research is related to understanding the structure of the Milky Way Galaxy by using stars as tracers of the galactic halo and the debris from smaller galaxies from which it forms. She uses photometric and spectroscopic measurements of stars to determine distances and physical properties of large statistical samples to separate halo and disk components of the Milky Way.

Funding for SDSS-II is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the participating institutions, the National Science Foundation, the United States Department of Energy, the Japanese Monbukagakusho, and the Max Planck Society.

About the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey is the most ambitious astronomical survey project ever undertaken, having measured precise brightnesses and positions for hundreds of millions of galaxies, stars, and quasars during the last five years. The consortium of more than 300 scientists and engineers at 23 institutions around the world – and hundreds of other scientists working in collaboration — are using these data to address fascinating and fundamental questions about the universe.

Contact: Tiffany Lohwater
Phone: (518) 276-6542
E-mail: lohwat@rpi.edu