ESA's Virtual Observatory in Spain
ESA TV Exchanges
ESAC (European Space Astronomy Centre) in Villafranca some 30 km west of Madrid is a new ESA Establishment mostly dedicated to the so-called science operations of ESA's space telescopes and planetary missions. A major tool is the Virtual Observatory, a giant database which puts the past observation data from many missions at the fingertips of the astronomers in a compatible format -- accessible via the Internet as if the whole Universe were online.
Today's production shows the working of the Virtual Observatory and includes interviews with ESA experts at ESAC.
The script is online as a PDF file under http://television.esa.int/photos/EbS51587.pdf
A WMV preview clip is online under http://esatv-movies.e-vision.nl/videos/mphi/VOBS_14-12-06_wmphigh.wmv

Broadcasted on ESA TV via EBS on May 4th 2007
Virtual Observatory ñ Putting the Universe online
A-Roll start 00:00:00
00:00:40 ESAís Venus Express, probing the mysteries of the planetís atmosphere, is but one of many spacecraft sending relentless streams of data back to Earth.
00:00:51 In the heart of Spain, the ruins of a 15th century castle look over the European Space Astronomy Centre, ESAC. The antennae of the former Villafranca tracking station still receive such science data, processed in several science operations centres.
00:01:09 But the facility today is expanding to host an ambitious archive centre, the Virtual Observatory, a key tool for the international astronomical community, a single entry point to accessing this wealth of space science data.
00:01:22 Clip Martin Kessler, ESA Virtual Observatory Project Manager ""We are not just controlling the payloads; we are not just processing the data and send them out for scientists to use. We are also building a huge arch