NASA unveiled a catalog of open data on Aug. 30 with the launch of data.nasa.gov. The site features a directory of datasets, tools for using the data, and a mechanism for reporting to NASA on data quality or submitting an additional high-value dataset.

In 2010, NASA made several contributions to Data.gov, but the new catalog is a further advancement. The constantly-updating list directly links to more the 500 datasets grouped into nine categories. NASA has also tagged all data to make the directory searchable, according to the site's blog.

NASA generates, collects and compiles over 4 terabytes of new Earth science data each day, and currently has zettabytes of digitized data, according to the site. The nine data categories are aeronautics, earth science, space science, life science, climate, engineering, operations, institutional and catalogs (external catalogs on data.gov).  

The data included in the catalog is in varying formats, as well. Exploring the space science category led to several image options including an externally-linked collection of lunar maps and charts, contributed by Google (NASDAQ: GOOG).

The search functionality, however, appears less robust. Searches in the top bar of the main data page for "space weather" and "CME" returned no results. A third search attempt used the data tag "spaceflight," but also yielded no results.

It appears search only applies to dataset descriptions, rather than the actual data contained in each set. As such, the data set search is only as good as its tags and its description. The curator of each data set, with contact information is also listed with each dataset. See and example of a data.nasa.gov dataset page which links out to an actual data set.

For more:
- visit data.nasa.gov
- read the blog post

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