How to read this atlas
Most of what's on this map is invisible to North-American astronomers. That's the point. Public Chinese astronomy archives are growing fast, and the absence is not data — it's awareness.
The outer ring walks the electromagnetic spectrum from radio around to gamma-ray, grouped by band. Within each band, archives are spaced for readability — not strict log-frequency placement. The inner ring is mining depth: at 1, every catalog row has been touched by a paper; at 0, the data is stored but unread.
Each archive is a wedge. Its depth bar runs from the most-mined data layer (e.g. DAMPE's e+/e- spectrum, near 0.85) down to the least-mined-but-still-well-processed layer (e.g. WFST untriggered transients, near 0.05). The shaded reservoir below is what's stored and waiting. Hover any wedge for the layer summary; click any wedge to expand the full breakdown and open the archive's portal.
Note the structural gaps: sub-millimetre, mid-IR, and near-IR are essentially empty. China's astronomy capacity grew first in radio, optical/spectroscopic, X-ray and gamma — the IR and sub-mm windows are where future capacity is least covered domestically. CSST will add NIR but not until 2027.
Methodology — the vector mining score
Each archive is broken into its meaningful data layers. Each layer carries two numbers in [0,1]:
- processing — how mature the data product is. Raw frame = low; calibrated catalog = high.
- mined — how much of the layer has been individually studied in the literature. Bulk-catalog citations alone do not lift this number.
The bar's top is the mined value of the most-mined layer. The bar's bottom is the mined value of the least-mined layer with processing ≥ 0.5 — i.e. the data is ready to use; readers haven't gotten there. The gap and the reservoir below are the editorial point.
Source proxies, in priority order: SIMBAD/NED references-per-source for catalog layers; ADS dedicated-paper counts for instrument-specific and time-domain layers; and a curator override where the proxies lie. Each mined value carries a confidence flag.
Inclusion criteria. Public-facing archives produced by Chinese institutions, agencies, or led missions. Joint missions where China is a primary partner (SVOM with CNES, EP with ESA contribution) are included. Missions where China is a minor contributor are not. Lunar/planetary surface science archives (most Chang'e and Tianwen mission data products) are not on this atlas — they are data, but they are not astronomy data; they live on the parent RAVEN Atlas only when an instrument's astronomical use case earns its own line, as Chang'e-3 LUT does.
References & data sources
- SIMBAD — Wenger et al. 2000, A&AS 143, 9
- NASA ADS — Kurtz et al. 2000, A&AS 143, 41
- NADC — Cui et al. 2014, IAU Symp. 306 · nadc.china-vo.org
- FAST — Nan et al. 2011; Jiang et al. 2020, RAA
- NCLE / Queqiao + CE-4 LFRS — Bentum et al. 2020; Wu et al. 2018
- Tianlai — Chen 2012, IJMPCS 12, 256; Wu et al. 2021
- MUSER (Mingantu) — Yan et al. 2009; Yan et al. 2021
- 21CMA — Wang et al. 2013, ApJ 763, 90; Zheng et al. 2016, ApJ 832, 190
- LAMOST — Cui et al. 2012, RAA 12, 1197; Zhao et al. 2012
- WFST / Mozi — Lou et al. 2024 (commissioning); Wang et al. 2023
- AST3 / CSTAR — Yuan et al. 2008; Li et al. 2017
- BASS — Zou et al. 2017, PASP 129, 064101
- SAGE — Zheng et al. 2018, RAA 18, 147; Fan et al. 2023, ApJS 268, 9
- GWAC — Wei et al. 2016 (SVOM ground segment); Han et al. 2021
- SONG-China (Delingha) — Andersen et al. 2014; Deng et al. 2018
- NVST — Liu et al. 2014, RAA
- CHASE / Xihe — Li et al. 2022, Sci. China PMA 65, 289602
- Huairou Solar Observing Station — Ai & Hu 1986; Zhang et al. 2007
- Chinese Plate Digitization — Yu et al. 2017, BASI; Zhao et al. 2019
- Chang'e-3 LUT — Cao et al. 2011; Wang et al. 2015 (UV astronomy from the Moon)
- ASO-S / Kuafu-1 — Gan et al. 2023, Solar Phys. 298, 68
- Insight-HXMT — Zhang et al. 2020, Sci. China PMA 63, 249502
- Einstein Probe — Yuan et al. 2022, Handbook of X-ray and Gamma-ray Astrophysics; Yuan et al. 2025, SCPMA
- LEIA — Zhang et al. 2022, ApJ 941, L2
- Fengyun / FY-3E SXR — Zhang et al. 2019; Yang et al. 2017
- DAMPE / Wukong — Chang et al. 2017, Astropart. Phys.; DAMPE Collab. 2017, Nature 552, 63
- GECAM — Li et al. 2022, RAA 22, 045009
- SVOM — Wei et al. 2016, arXiv:1610.06892; Atteia et al. 2022
- LHAASO — Cao et al. 2019; LHAASO Collab. 2021, Nature 594, 33 (PeVatrons)