Giant Planet Observations in NASA’s Planetary Data System

Spacecraft exploration of the outer solar system began with the arrival of Pioneer 10 at Jupiter in 1973 and continues to the present day with the Juno spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter. The spacecraft destined for the giant planets have conducted a wide range of fundamental investigations, returning data that continues to reshape our understanding of these complex systems, sometimes decades after the data were acquired. NASA’s Planetary Data System (PDS) is charged with the stewardship of these data, ensuring both their accessibility and usability for future generations of researchers. After nearly five decades of exploration of the giant planets of our solar system, the PDS is now responsible for the curation, preservation, and distribution of a wealth of remote sensing data relevant to the giant planets of our solar system. This includes data covering a wide range of wavelengths, instrumentation, acquisition modalities, targets, and physical processes. In this presentation we describe representative examples of such data, demonstrating the breadth of the science questions and physical processes they probe. We also discuss the methods implemented in the PDS to aid in giant planets data search and discovery. Finally, we present an outlook of anticipated future giant planets data planned for ingestion in the PDS and we discuss their application to both solar system and exoplanetary science investigations.