Importance of the Hubble archive. The number of archival papers has exceeded the number of PI-led papers since 2006 (from White et al., 2009)
I’ve been giving some thought to software development in astronomy, which is a difficult topic. All astronomers agree that good data processing, and hence good software, is crucial to doing rigorous science. To interpret observational data, to translate electrons on a detector to scientific knowledge, requires a solid understanding of the instrument, the observing conditions, and of the exact process with which the data were treated. Many large ground- and space-based observatories, like those run by ESO, Gemini and NASA, strive to provide the community with “science-ready” data. This means that the data are processed to remove all instrumental signatures, allowing astronomers to dive straight into the analysis.
The rationale is that providing science-ready data essentially makes them usable by a much wider community than those involved in the observing campaign, or those used to working with a given instrument. Indeed, a big driver behind the global Virtual Observatory initiative is the “democratisation of astronomy” by providing anyone in the world with ready-to-use astronomical data, irrespective of their location or affiliation to large organisations.
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