Products Overview

The LAMBDA site provides access to many important cosmological data sets through the menu on the left. Many of these menu items are served directly by the LAMBDA system; the remainder are links to sites maintained on other computer systems. The LAMBDA team is committed to providing access to as many data sets as possible. Please feel free to suggest additional collections through the suggestions form.

There are a few ways users are able to download data located in the Products data table page found on each mission/experiment page.
In the "File Name" column, the file name is set as a link. Right click on the active link and the file will be downloaded to your device. File formats are:

• .fits = Flexible Image Transport System astronomical common data format.
• .tar = a large number of files grouped together in on file using the standard command, tar.
• .tar.gz and .tgz = a large number of files grouped together into one file. Then the tar'd file is compressed using the "gzip" command.
• .txt = text file
• .pdf = Portable Document Formatted file. This is very common format to view papers, etc. It is an Adobe format.

In the first column of the data product table labeled "Description", a user may see the terms "WGET DL" and "CURL DL". These options are helpful to users when there are a large number of files to download at one time and/or that the files are rather large.

"WGET DL" - This is a bash script that is offered to the user to download to their device. This script is coded for the user to retrieve a file/group of files (large files) through FTP via command-line and/or web links. A user will select the link, "WGET DL", which downloads the bash file. This script uses the command "wget" to retrieve their data. The user may run this bash code when convenient.

"CURL DL" - This is a bash script that is offered to the user to download to their device. This script is coded for the users to retrieve data accessible via the web. This script uses the command "curl" to retrieve their data. The user may run this bash code when convenient.

The most common data format for all LAMBDA products is FITS (Flexible Image Transport System) among those that study astronomy. It tends to be the best method of analyzing, transporting, and archiving scientific data files. This format supports very large size data files.

FITS documentation can be found at: https://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/fits_documentation.html