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Find a Node - Use these links to navigate to any of the 8 publicly accessible PDS Nodes.

This bar indicates that you are within the PDS enterprise which includes 6 science discipline nodes and 2 support nodes which are overseen by the Project Management Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). Each node is led by an expert in the subject discipline, supported by an advisory group of other practitioners of that discipline, and subject to selection and approval under a regular NASA Research Announcement.



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Description of The Data

The data are observations of Mercury’s sodium exosphere taken between 2011 and 2013 by Andrew Potter and Rosemary Killen. They overlap with the orbital phase of the MESSENGER mission and they contain both continuum and D2 emission. The data are stored in FITS files with an associated XML label.

Evaluating the Data

Each file has a corresponding browse file (see example above, which displays the date of observation). The URNs for the data file and the browse file take the following form
urn:nasa:pds:mcmath-pierce_mercury:data_calibrated:2011_01_08_a
urn:nasa:pds:mcmath-pierce_mercury:browse:2011_01_08_a_browse

For information concerning data processing see the User’s Guide.

Accessing the data

An Index, which includes both calibrated files and browse files, is provided and individual files can be retrieved by submitting a list of desired URNs.

An alternate approach is to download the bundle.

Citing the data

Cassidy, T., Merkel, A., Potter, A., Killen, R. (2020), KPNO McMath-Pierce Observations of Mercury, NASA Planetary Data System, doi:10.17189/r3b4-kd17.