HEROIC - Hop Enabled Realtime Observatory Information and Coordination

Discovery and telescope follow-up of rare and exotic sources is critical to pushing the boundaries of understanding of fundamental physics. A relatively new capability of combining information from different messengers to more completely understand the universe is called multimessenger astronomy. Multimessenger time domain astronomy is a powerful new tool for exploring the cosmos. The four messengers that astronomers study are light in all its forms, cosmic rays, neutrinos, and gravitational waves. Many source types change rapidly with time. It is critical that observations occur simultaneously or within a short time span so that astronomers capture the properties of different messengers before the source changes. The key challenge is coordinating community follow-up across multiple observatories with many instruments, minimizing duplication, and maximizing the value of the combined dataset. Over a 3-year award, a team led by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will build a Hop-Enabled Real-time Observatory Information and Coordination (HEROIC) service. HEROIC will collate, save and publish observatory and instrument status (present, planned, and archival), from a worldwide network of ground- and space-based facilities. Moreover, HEROIC enables teams from smaller institutions to more effectively participate in MMA science. HEROIC will provide the entire astrophysics community a single destination to quickly see what facility can point to a multi-messenger source, what observations are currently being scheduled or undertaken with them, and which groups to coordinate with. HEROIC will be a central component in a fully integrated, interoperable cyberinfrastructure for astrophysics, where scientists can receive alerts, plan and trigger follow-up, and share observations with each other, breaking barriers between previously siloed facilities. The HEROIC service can potentially be extended to all major ground- and space-based facilities. The tools that HEROIC provides are essential for all time-domain astrophysics, and will enable entirely new studies, as scientists will be able to use existing facilities and archival data more effectively, while also encouraging coordination between teams. By developing critical infrastructure that is useful for multiple facilities, HEROIC also frees observatories up from having to develop/maintain similar services themselves, reducing their development burden, and increasing the incentive to participate. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.