ELKH Cloud, developed by SZTAKI and Wigner, helps the James Webb space telescope

The Research Cloud, a joint project of SZTAKI and the Wigner Research Centre for Physics, is helping the most advanced space telescope to spy on the cosmos: the James Webb spectral database is also computed on the ELKH Cloud.

Launched in late 2021 and still in orbit, the James Webb space telescope is not only expanding our knowledge of the universe, but also providing a wealth of data on how the universe works – data that needs to be processed.

In recent years, spectral modelling and the atomic physics calculations behind it have made significant progress, creating the need for a new, more modern and complete spectral database that can be used to calibrate the JWST spectrograph.

In the coming months, the MTA-ELTE Airborne Milky Way Research Group will perform the related calculations using the ELKH Cloud. The database will contain stellar spectra for 299 different chemical compositions and nearly 800,000 theoretical spectra will be calculated.

Illustration: NASA