Archiving of Planetary Ring Data

Abstract

Stellar occultation data provide our only Earth-based means of probing planetary rings at kilometer spatial resolution. The occultation data archive at MIT contains original data and analysis products of stellar occultations by the ring systems of the planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune observed by members of the group (and other groups) from 1977 to the present. During this time period, several media have been used to record and store the original and processed data: (1) chart records; (2) printed output, (3) audio reel tape; (4) audio cassette tape; (5) 7-track, 1/2-inch computer tape; (6) 9-track, 1/2-inch computer tape at 800, 1600, and 6250 bpi; (7) NOVA disk platters (2.5 and 5.0 Mbyte); (8) write once optical disks; (9) punched cards; and (10) read-write optical disks. With the rapid change of computer technology over this time period, some of these media have become not only obsolete, but nearly extinct. In particular, it has become nearly impossible to find any facilities that can still read 800 bpi tapes, which contain the only copies of several important data sets for the ring system of Uranus. In particular, we have an extensive ring data collection that includes data sets for the following Uranian ring occultations: U0, U11, U12, U13, U14, U25, U17, and U36.