It was between 60,000 and 90,000 years ago that humans started leaving their natural habitats in Africa to discover unknown lands. A change in climate might have forced them to leave in search of a better environment to live in. These early explorers were roaming, taking risks, and learning from their experiences. The exploring nature of ancient people carried forward to today where astronomers and researchers are studying outer space. With time the medium of exploration changed. While early humans traveled on foot, explorers like Vasco De Gama and Columbus sailed in the fleets. Fast forward to the present we are using technology to explore outer space.
Various man-made satellites and telescopes have their eyes set on the cosmos, capturing all possible activities. Basically, the purpose of these devices and similar ones is to gather as much data as possible so that researchers can analyze and make use of it. In most cases space organizations open source the data collected by these explorer devices for public researchers to implement their research. As a result, a lot of creative minds have been contributing to the exploration of the universe.
Here are some of the open-source datasets with which you can start your journey:-
- Kaggle: Kaggle is one of the most famous online data science platforms containing thousands of datasets and notebooks contributed by contributors from all around the globe. Some contributor to follow for astronomical-related data is
Baris Dincer
[profile].
- Data World:- Another prominent data source platform. To access some of the data a premium is required. It contains data relating to planetary observations, space station sightings, and more [Related Link].
- Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS):- The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is one of the largest astronomical surveys. It is focused on growing our knowledge of the evolution of the universe. This includes the formation of stars and galaxies, the history of the Milky Way, the nature of supermassive black holes, and the science behind dark energy. It contains some of the most astonishing images of the universe in the Fits file format [Related Link].
- Mars Space Flight Facility Datasets:- Mars Space Flight Facility is located in the Moeur Building on the Tempe campus. Scientists and researchers are using instruments on spacecraft on Mars to explore the geology and mineralogy of the Red Planet. The facility is led by the principal investigator and Regents professor Philip Christensen. They had open-sourced the data relating to the red planet. [Related Link]
- Kepler dataset:- The Kepler Mission was a space observatory designed to survey a specific portion of our region of the Milky Way galaxy. An extremely valuable part of Kepler’s work was the identification of Earth-size planets around distant stars. The dataset is open source and is now used by many researchers to detect exoplanets and other objects in outer space. [Related link]
- Solar and Heliospheric Observer dataset:- The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory is a joint venture of the European space agency and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to study the sun, its surface, and its characteristics. [Related Link]
- Nasa's open data Portal:- It is NASA's website for open data provided to the public. The majority of dataset pages on data.nasa.gov only hold metadata for each dataset. It is common for the actual data to be held on other NASA archive sites. [Related Link]
- JPL database:- The Jet Propulsion Laboratory is federally funded by NASA and managed by Caltech. JPL works on robotic space exploration, sending rovers to Mars, probes into the farthest reaches of the solar system, and satellites to advance understanding of our earth. JPL also makes its data releases on an occasional basis to promote remote researchers and explorers. [Related Link]
Apart from these major national space agencies release the findings and data on their official website. If needed, one can obtain data from specific exploratory missions.
