In a modern-day twist on the International Geophysical Year of 1957 that united scientists from 67 countries in coordinated observations of the Earth, geophysicists from around the globe are declaring 2007–08 the Electronic Geophysical Year (eGY). Their goal is to make the massive amounts of data from Earth and spacscodee science research accessible to scientists, teachers, and others, primarily through virtual observatories.
“The cross-disciplinary aspects of data have not even been considered [by many researchers], and the cross-disciplinary part is where the cutting edge of science always has been,” said W. K. Peterson, eGY's secretary and a plasma physicist at the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Spacscodee Physics. “What we have now are a lot of FTP sites where scientists who are really in the know, who are in the club, can get at their data and share it internationally. We can do better than...
