Poster Abstract

P.2 Anne Raugh (University of Maryland)

But What Would Users Call It? Metadata Evolution in the Planetary Data System

Nearly three decades after the Planetary Data System (PDS) metadata standards were first developed, the PDS archive holdings now comprise a very heterogeneous collection. Targets run the gamut from planets, comets, and asteroids to dust particles, fields, and plasmas; data sources include spacecraft, space telescopes, aircraft- and balloon-borne telescopes, groundbased observatories, and labs; data recorded cover the entire EM spectrum as well as dust impacts, particle counts, gravity profiles, shape models, and ever more specialized remote and in situ studies. PDS is now in an era where an increasing number of users want to query the archive for data based on the intrinsic properties of the data (target, wavelength range, etc.) rather than prior knowledge about what instrument or observing program produced the result.

We describe how the metadata in the new PDS4 standard has been designed specifically to address the issue of how users want to discover data in the ever more diverse PDS archive holdings, and what this means for user interface development.