2012/11/29 by Hanno Rein, Rein, Hanno · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Computational Physics (physics.comp-ph) #Data Analysis #Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP) #FOS: Physical sciences #Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM) #Statistics and Probability (physics.data-an) #astro-ph.EP #astro-ph.IM #physics.comp-ph #physics.data-an
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1211.7121
6 pages, 3 listings, 1 table, updated thanks to feedback from various people, more comments welcome
arxiv created 2012/12/04 · arxiv updated 2012/12/05
I present a new kind of astronomical database based on small text files and a distributed version control system. This encourages the community to work collaboratively. It creates a decentralized, completely open and democratic way of managing small to medium sized heterogeneous astronomical databases and catalogues. The use of the XML file format allows an easy to parse and read, yet dynamic and extendable database structure. The Open Exoplanet Catalogue is based on these principles and presented as an example. It is a catalogue of all discovered extra-solar planets. It is the only catalogue that can correctly represent the orbital structure of planets in arbitrary binary, triple and quadruple star systems, as well as orphan planets.