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| Redshift Survey of the Southern Sky | |
|---|---|
| Name | Redshift Survey of the Southern Sky |
| Abbreviation | RSSS |
| Type | Astronomical redshift survey |
| Started | 1990s |
| Location | Southern Hemisphere |
| Instruments | Multiple spectrographs |
| Domain | Extragalactic astronomy |
Redshift Survey of the Southern Sky The Redshift Survey of the Southern Sky was a major observational program mapping galaxy redshifts across the Southern Hemisphere to measure large-scale structure and cosmological parameters, involving collaborations among institutions such as European Southern Observatory, Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, Australian National University, University of Cambridge, and University of Oxford. It complemented Northern surveys like the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the Two-degree Field Galaxy Redshift Survey while interfacing with space missions including Hubble Space Telescope and Gaia to provide redshift anchors for studies by teams at Max Planck Society, Harvard University, and Princeton University. The project informed work by researchers connected to Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, California Institute of Technology, and Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics and contributed data used by collaborations such as the Dark Energy Survey and the Anglo-Australian Observatory.
The survey aimed to obtain spectroscopic redshifts for galaxies in the Southern Hemisphere to map cosmic web features first quantified by projects like the CfA Redshift Survey, the Las Campanas Redshift Survey, and the 2MASS Redshift Survey, and drew logistical support from facilities including La Silla Observatory, Siding Spring Observatory, Mount Stromlo Observatory, Keck Observatory, and European Space Agency. It targeted magnitude-limited and color-selected samples comparable to catalogs such as the Third Reference Catalogue of Bright Galaxies, Uppsala General Catalogue of Galaxies, and the Revised Shapley-Ames Catalog, benefiting analyses by researchers at Yale University, University of Chicago, Columbia University, and Johns Hopkins University. Coordination with surveys like WISE, ROSAT, Planck (spacecraft), and Infrared Astronomical Satellite improved cross-wavelength science exploited by teams at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Space Telescope Science Institute, and Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy.
Instrument choices combined multi-object spectrographs and fiber-fed systems analogous to devices on Anglo-Australian Telescope, Blanco 4m Telescope, Very Large Telescope, and Magellan Telescopes, leveraging detector technology from groups at European Southern Observatory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Fermilab, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The selection function mirrored methodologies developed by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey consortium and the Two Micron All Sky Survey teams and used photometric inputs from instruments at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory and imaging programs run by NOIRLab and National Optical Astronomy Observatory. Project governance involved committees with members from University of Melbourne, University of Sydney, Monash University, University of Cape Town, and University of Chile and adopted calibration strategies tested in projects like DEEP2 Redshift Survey and VIPERS.
Observing campaigns were scheduled across semesters shared with observatories run by European Southern Observatory, NOIRLab, and Australian Astronomical Observatory, using pipelines developed in collaboration with software teams at Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Space Telescope Science Institute, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, and Princeton University. Raw spectra were reduced with techniques influenced by work at University of California, Berkeley, Carnegie Institution for Science, Kavli Institute for Cosmology, Cambridge, and Institute for Advanced Study, with redshift determination algorithms validated against catalogs from 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey, 6dF Galaxy Survey, and GAMA (Galaxy And Mass Assembly). Quality assessment drew on standards from International Astronomical Union committees and statistical methods pioneered by researchers at Oxford University, Cambridge University, Imperial College London, and University of Toronto.
Published analyses demonstrated filamentary structure, void statistics, and galaxy clustering consistent with Lambda-CDM predictions tested in simulations from Millennium Simulation, Illustris, and Bolshoi (simulation), informing cosmological parameter estimates used by teams at Planck (spacecraft), WMAP, and BOSS (Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey). Results on galaxy luminosity functions, stellar mass distributions, and environmental dependencies were compared with studies by VIRGO Consortium, SAMI Galaxy Survey, MaNGA (Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory), and ATLAS3D, and influenced models developed at Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and NASA. The survey provided redshifts for active galactic nuclei and cluster members studied by groups working with Chandra X-ray Observatory, XMM-Newton, South Pole Telescope, and Atacama Cosmology Telescope.
Released data products included spectroscopic redshift catalogs, target lists, and value-added catalogs analogous to deliverables from Sloan Digital Sky Survey, GAMA, and 2dFGRS, distributed to archives operated by European Space Agency, NOIRLab, NASA/IPAC, and Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg. Ancillary catalogs cross-matched with WISE, GALEX, ROSAT, and Planck datasets enabled multiwavelength studies pursued by researchers at Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, University College London, and University of Edinburgh. Data formats followed standards from the International Virtual Observatory Alliance and were used by community tools developed at Astropy Project, TOPCAT, Aladin (software), and VizieR.
The survey's legacy influenced follow-up programs including the Dark Energy Survey, Taipan Galaxy Survey, 4MOST, DESI (Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument), and proposals at Square Kilometre Array precursor facilities, and guided theoretical work at institutions like Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University, Stanford University, and Caltech. Its catalogues continue to be cited by teams associated with European Southern Observatory, NOIRLab, Australian Astronomical Observatory, Max Planck Society, and NASA in studies of large-scale structure, galaxy evolution, and cosmology, and seeded multi-institution collaborations spanning University of Cambridge, Oxford University, Harvard University, Yale University, and University of Chicago.
Category:Astronomical surveys