URL:

Keywords:

Abstract:

The National Virtual Observatory (NVO) project is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to provide the cyberinfrastructure necessary to support the federation of a large number of astronomical data sets, allowing search across multiple data sets and the development of simulations that incorporate many types of astronomical data. Through the development of tools and standardized data models, the NVO hopes to enable the combination of multiple pointed-observation telescopes and sky surveys into a large, unified data set that effectively functions as a broadband, worldwide telescope. The NVO is part of a larger effort, known as the International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA), to support data federation and exchange across a number of national and regional virtual observatorie