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Observations for the Two Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS) began in 1997 and were completed in 2001 at two telescope
Telescope

A telescope is an instrument designed for the observation of remote objects by the collection of electromagnetic radiation. The first known practically functioning telescopes were invented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 17th century....
s located one each in the northern
Northern Hemisphere

The Northern Hemisphere is the half of a planet that is north of the equator?the word sphere literally means 'half sphere'. It is also that half of the celestial sphere north of the celestial equator....
 and southern hemisphere
Southern Hemisphere

The Southern Hemisphere is the half of a planet that is south of the equator?the word sphere literally means 'half ball'. It is also that half of the celestial sphere south of the celestial equator....
s (Mt. Hopkins Arizona
Arizona

The State of Arizona is a U.S. state located in the Southwestern United States of the United States. The capital and largest city is Phoenix, Arizona....
 and Cerro Tololo/CTIO
Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory

The Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory is a complex of astronomical telescopes and instruments located at 30.169 S, 70.804 W, approximately 80 km to the East of La Serena, Chile at an altitude of 2200 metres....
 Chile
Chile

Chile, officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long and narrow coastal strip wedged between the Andes mountains and the Pacific Ocean....
, 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 2003. The whole sky was covered using photometric system
Photometric system

In astronomy, a Photometric system is a set of well-defined passbands , with a known sensitivity to incident radiation. The sensitivity usually depends on the optical system, detectors and filters used....
 of three infrared
Infrared

Infrared radiation is electromagnetic radiation whose wavelength is longer than that of visible light , but shorter than that of terahertz radiation and microwaves ....
 wavebands around 2 micrometre
Micrometre

A micrometre or micron is one Micro- of a metre, or equivalently one thousandth of a millimetre. It is also commonly known as a micron....
s (m): J (1.25 m), H (1.65 m), and Ks (2.17 m).

The goals of this survey included:

This last goal has been admirably achieved.






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Observations for the Two Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS) began in 1997 and were completed in 2001 at two telescope
Telescope

A telescope is an instrument designed for the observation of remote objects by the collection of electromagnetic radiation. The first known practically functioning telescopes were invented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 17th century....
s located one each in the northern
Northern Hemisphere

The Northern Hemisphere is the half of a planet that is north of the equator?the word sphere literally means 'half sphere'. It is also that half of the celestial sphere north of the celestial equator....
 and southern hemisphere
Southern Hemisphere

The Southern Hemisphere is the half of a planet that is south of the equator?the word sphere literally means 'half ball'. It is also that half of the celestial sphere south of the celestial equator....
s (Mt. Hopkins Arizona
Arizona

The State of Arizona is a U.S. state located in the Southwestern United States of the United States. The capital and largest city is Phoenix, Arizona....
 and Cerro Tololo/CTIO
Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory

The Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory is a complex of astronomical telescopes and instruments located at 30.169 S, 70.804 W, approximately 80 km to the East of La Serena, Chile at an altitude of 2200 metres....
 Chile
Chile

Chile, officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long and narrow coastal strip wedged between the Andes mountains and the Pacific Ocean....
, 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 2003. The whole sky was covered using photometric system
Photometric system

In astronomy, a Photometric system is a set of well-defined passbands , with a known sensitivity to incident radiation. The sensitivity usually depends on the optical system, detectors and filters used....
 of three infrared
Infrared

Infrared radiation is electromagnetic radiation whose wavelength is longer than that of visible light , but shorter than that of terahertz radiation and microwaves ....
 wavebands around 2 micrometre
Micrometre

A micrometre or micron is one Micro- of a metre, or equivalently one thousandth of a millimetre. It is also commonly known as a micron....
s (m): J (1.25 m), H (1.65 m), and Ks (2.17 m).

The goals of this survey included:
  • Detection of galaxies
    Galaxy

    A galaxy is a massive, gravitation system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and cosmic dust, and an important but poorly-understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter....
     in the "zone of avoidance
    Zone of Avoidance

    The Zone of Avoidance is the area of the night sky that is obscured by our own galaxy, the Milky Way....
    ," a strip of sky obscured in visible light by our own Galaxy, the Milky Way
    Milky Way

    The Milky Way, sometimes called simply the Galaxy, is the galaxy in which the Solar System is located. It is a barred spiral galaxy that is part of the Local Group of galaxies....
    .
  • First detection of brown dwarf
    Brown dwarf

    Brown dwarfs are sub-star objects with a mass below that necessary to maintain hydrogen-burning nuclear fusion reactions in their cores, as do stars on the main sequence, but which have fully convective surfaces and interiors, with no chemical differentiation by depth....
    s.
  • An extensive survey of low mass star
    Star

    A star is a massive, luminous ball of Plasma that is held together by its own gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth....
    s, 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 (star
Star

A star is a massive, luminous ball of Plasma that is held together by its own gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth....
s, planet
Planet

A planet , as 2006 definition of planet by the International Astronomical Union , is a celestial body orbiting a star or Stellar evolution#Stellar remnants that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared the neighbourhood of planetesimals....
s, asteroid
Asteroid

Asteroids, sometimes called minor planets or planetoids, are small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun, smaller than planets but larger than meteoroids....
s) and extended sources (galaxies
Galaxy

A galaxy is a massive, gravitation system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and cosmic dust, and an important but poorly-understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter....
, nebula
Nebula

A nebula is an interstellar cloud of cosmic dust, hydrogen gas and Plasma . Originally nebula was a general name for any extended astronomy astronomical object, including galaxy beyond the Milky Way ....
e) were catalogued by automated computer programs to an average limiting magnitude
Apparent magnitude

The apparent magnitude of a celestial body is a measurement of its brightness as seen by an observer on Earth, normalized to the value it would have in the absence of the Earth's atmosphere....
 of about 14. More than 300 million
Million

One million , or one thousand 1000 , is the natural number following 999,999 and preceding 1,000,001. The name is derived from Italian, where mille was 1,000, and 1,000,000 became milione, "a large thousand"....
 point sources and 1 million extended sources were catalogued. In November 2003, a team of scientists announced the discovery of the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy
Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy

The Canis Major Dwarf galaxy is located in the same part of the sky as the constellation Canis Major. The galaxy contains a relatively high percentage of red giant stars, and is thought to contain an estimated one 1000000000 stars in all....
, 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
Public domain

File:PD-icon.svgThe public domain is a range of abstract materials?commonly referred to as intellectual property?which are not owned or controlled by anyone....
, and may be for free by anyone. There is also a list of with links to free pre-publication copies of the papers.

2MASS is sponsored by the University of Massachusetts
University of Massachusetts

The University of Massachusetts is the five-campus public university system of the Massachusetts.The system includes University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Massachusetts Boston, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth , University of Massachusetts Lowell, and the University of Massachusetts Medical School....
 (aka UMass, and the origin of the survey name), the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC
Infrared Processing and Analysis Center

The Infrared Processing and Analysis Center is the NASA science center which is responsible for the data processing, analysis, and archiving for NASA's infrared astronomy and astrophysics missions....
, run by JPL
Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a List of federally funded research and development centers and NASA field center located in the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles County, California, California, United States....
 and Caltech), NASA
NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an agency of the Federal government of the United States, responsible for the nation's public list of space agencies....
, and the NSF
National Science Foundation

The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering....
.

External links