Advanced Scientific Data Format
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Advanced Scientific Data Format (ASDF) is a proposed replacement to the FITS standard for astronomical images and other scientific data.[1] The metadata is contained in a YAML (Human-readable data serialization format) header followed by binary or ASCII data.
#ASDF| Advanced Scientific Data Format | |
|---|---|
| |
| Internet media type | application/octet-stream |
| Magic number | #ASDF |
| Initial release | September 19, 2015 |
| Type of format | scientific data |
| Contained by | YAML |
| Extended from | FITS |
| Website | asdf-standard |
ASDF is used, notably, as an interchange format for the data processing pipeline of the James Webb Space Telescope.[2]
Improvements to FITS
The Flexible Image Transport System (FITS) standard is a widely used data format in astronomy that incorporates metadata and ASCII or binary data in the same file.[3] However, the FITS standard has several limitations that make it difficult to use for complicated and hierarchical data. For example, the FITS 'cards' have keywords limited to only 8 characters, which can make it difficult to properly describe the value associated with it and the value for each keyword and its comment cannot be longer than 68 characters.[1] By using YAML, more sophisticated and nested data structures may be used in ASDF than FITS.
