Big data is pushing astronomy in a new direction. Massive amounts of astronomical big data produced by the new generations of powerful instruments and simulations are exponentially gathered every day. Big data like astronomical images, infrared, microwave, ultraviolet, X-rays and gamma generated by stars, galaxies and black holes are observed by the new generations of space telescopes. It may take years to uncover the hidden signals in such data that may already hold answers to some of the fundamental questions of the universe we’re seeking. In this paper, we attempt to present a short review about the astronomical big data and how can such massive data change our understanding of the universe.
Big Data is a vast volume of data that is not easy to be stored or processed with conventional approaches within a limited period. Therefore, to manage and extract value from it, a new architecture, method and analysis are needed. Big Data poses many challenges and problems and it has different properties such as volume, velocity, variety and veracity. The goal of Big Data is not only to collect, save and organize huge volumes of data, but it is also used to evaluate, extract and visualize useful information for further processes. Big Data is a modern worldwide novel technology that has the potential to provide great benefits to business and organizations of different fields around the world and it will be more desirable in the next few years. This work describes the importance of Big Data, various challenges it faces in adapting to today's modern era, characteristics and architecture of Big Data, technologies used in Big Data and applications created using Big Data. The paper also explains MapReduce and Hadoop Distributed File System as two important models of Big Data.
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