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MAST Staff

SDSS Data Now Available at MAST

 
The first survey in the SDSS Legacy Archive at MAST  is now live!

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is an international collaboration producing comprehensive ground-based imaging and high-resolution spectroscopic surveys since 1998, currently in its fifth phase of operations (SDSS-V). As readers of this newsletter know, the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) is the primary data archive for all observations from HST, JWST, and Roman, and contains data from 20+ other missions. MAST has partnered with SDSS-V in a new project called the "SDSS Legacy Archive at MAST", a copy of all science-ready SDSS data hosted by MAST side-by-side with our space missions.

By the end of 2028, the SDSS Legacy Archive at MAST (SLAM) will include all final versions of images, spectra, catalogs, and Value Added Catalogs (VACs) across all public SDSS data releases through SDSS-V. The first survey in the SDSS Legacy Archive at MAST is the SDSS-IV Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey. MaNGA data products include optical-wavelength 3D spectral cubes, extracted spectra, and galaxy maps containing velocities, spectral index and emission line measurements for over 10,000 low-redshift galaxies (z < 0.27).

Data Access

The SDSS Legacy Archive at MAST User Manual describes how to search for and download SDSS data using MAST interfaces. SDSS data can be accessed at MAST in-browser using the MAST Portal or in Python using astroquery.MAST. Search for Mission="SDSS" to view all SDSS data, or search for a target name ("M101") or by coordinates ("14h03m12.6s +54d20m56.7s") for specific targets.

All released SDSS data, including the raw data and pre-science data products, still remain available through the SDSS-provided services including the Science Archive Server (SAS) and Catalog Archive Server (CAS). The copies hosted at MAST provide an additional entry point to discovering and accessing the data, and provide all of the advantages of a multi-mission archive: SDSS data is now available through the same interfaces as HST, JWST, TESS, and Gaia holdings, opening up new opportunities for scientific synergies between missions.

More Coming Soon

The SDSS Legacy Archive at MAST is under active development! More surveys will be added in the near future. By the end of 2028, the SDSS Legacy Archive at MAST will include all final versions of images, spectra, catalogs, and Value Added Catalogs (VACs) across all public SDSS data releases through SDSS-V.

Links and Resources:

Logo for the SDSS Legacy Archive at MAST, a purple circle containing a white silhouette of a ship's mast on a starry purple background. This is a combination of the MAST logo (the ship) and the SDSS logo (the purple color).
Logo for the SDSS Legacy Archive at MAST. The SDSS Legacy Archive at MAST will host a copy of all science-ready data from SDSS-I through SDSS-V.
A sky coverage map for some of the SDSS-IV data, an oval-shaped graph showing astronomical coordinates RA and DEC on the axes. The ManGA footprint is plotted in green, which observed over 10,000 unique galaxies in the northern hemisphere. The plane of the Milky Way is shown in black.
Sky coverage map for the SDSS-IV MaNGA survey, plotted in green.  The footprint was derived from the "drpall" summary catalog file for MaNGA.
A rectangular-shaped graphic on a black background depicting the telescopes and instruments used in the the SDSS-IV MaNGA survey. The title text in the top-center of the image reads 'SDSS-IV Dissects 10,000 Galaxies in Nearby Universe'. In the top left corner is a small inset image of the SDSS 2.5m telescope at Apache Point Observatory, where the MaNGA data was taken. The center-left shows an image of a pair of hands plugging an optical fiber into the MaNGA instrument. The SDSS-IV logo is in the bottom-left. A close-up photo of the MaNGA instrument is shown in the center and bottom-right area of the image, demonstrating that each MaNGA data cube is made from dozens of optical fibers arranged in a hexagon shape, which each take a spectrum at a different location in the galaxy. The top-right inset shows two example spectra from MaNGA, one taken from the center of the fiber bundle (labeled 1) and one taken from the edge of the fiber bundle (labeled 2), showing how the spectrum of the central regions differs dramatically from outer regions. Image Credit: Dana Berry / SkyWorks Digital Inc., David Law, and the SDSS collaboration.
Overview graphic for the SDSS-IV MaNGA survey, which is included in the first release of the SDSS Legacy Archive at MAST. MaNGA obtains spectra across the entire face of target galaxies using custom designed fiber bundles. The bottom right illustrates how the array of fibers spatially samples a particular galaxy. The top right compares spectra observed by two fibers at different locations in the galaxy, showing how the spectrum of the central regions differs dramatically from outer regions. Image Credit: Dana Berry / SkyWorks Digital Inc., David Law, and the SDSS collaboration.

 

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