A data science platform to enable time-domain astronomy

• Main Authors: Coughlin, Michael W, Bloom, Joshua S, Nir, Guy, Antier, Sarah, Laz, Theophile Jegou du, van der Walt, Stéfan, Crellin-Quick, Arien, Culino, Thomas, Duev, Dmitry A, Goldstein, Daniel A, Healy, Brian F, Karambelkar, Viraj, Lilleboe, Jada, Shin, Kyung Min, Singer, Leo P, Ahumada, Tomas, Anand, Shreya, Bellm, Eric C, Dekany, Richard, Graham, Matthew J, Kasliwal, Mansi M, Kostadinova, Ivona, Kiendrebeogo, R. Weizmann, Kulkarni, Shrinivas R, Jenkins, Sydney, LeBaron, Natalie, Mahabal, Ashish A, Neill, James D, Parazin, B, Peloton, Julien, Perley, Daniel A, Riddle, Reed, Rusholme, Ben, van Santen, Jakob, Sollerman, Jesper, Stein, Robert, Turpin, Damien, Wold, Avery, Amat, Carla, Bonnefon, Adrien, Bonnefoy, Adrien, Flament, Manon, Kerkow, Frank, Kishore, Sulekha, Jani, Shloke, Mahanty, Stephen K, Liu, Céline, Llinares, Laura, Makarison, Jolyane, Olliéric, Alix, Perez, Inès, Pont, Lydie, Sharma, Vyom
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 14-06-2023
• Subjects: Physics - General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology; Physics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2305.00108

SkyPortal is an open-source software package designed to efficiently discover
interesting transients, manage follow-up, perform characterization, and
visualize the results. By enabling fast access to archival and catalog data,
cross-matching heterogeneous data streams, and the triggering and monitoring of
on-demand observations for further characterization, a SkyPortal-based platform
has been operating at scale for 2 yr for the Zwicky Transient Facility Phase II
community, with hundreds of users, containing tens of millions of time-domain
sources, interacting with dozens of telescopes, and enabling community
reporting. While SkyPortal emphasizes rich user experiences (UX) across common
frontend workflows, recognizing that scientific inquiry is increasingly
performed programmatically, SkyPortal also surfaces an extensive and
well-documented API system. From backend and frontend software to data science
analysis tools and visualization frameworks, the SkyPortal design emphasizes
the re-use and leveraging of best-in-class approaches, with a strong
extensibility ethos. For instance, SkyPortal now leverages ChatGPT
large-language models (LLMs) to automatically generate and surface source-level
human-readable summaries. With the imminent re-start of the next-generation of
gravitational wave detectors, SkyPortal now also includes dedicated
multi-messenger features addressing the requirements of rapid multi-messenger
follow-up: multi-telescope management, team/group organizing interfaces, and
cross-matching of multi-messenger data streams with time-domain optical
surveys, with interfaces sufficiently intuitive for the newcomers to the field.
(abridged)