Physics researchers and students rejoice as the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) has released 300TB worth of data collected by the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) detector of the Large Hadron Collider out to the public over the weekend.
The data itself that CERN has released is from 2011, and contains both raw data from the detectors, as well as “derived” datasets that are easier to work with. Included in the 300TB of data are the tools necessary to utilise the data, CERN’s Linux Environment which can be booted up in a virtual machine, as well as a bunch of scripts and apps which can also be found on GitHub.
As to why CERN is releasing the data, CMS physicist Kati Lassila-Perini believes that making their work available to everyone is a “giant step in the right direction.” “Once we’ve exhausted our exploration of the data, we see no reason not to make them available publicly. The benefits are numerous, from inspiring high school students to the training of the particle physicists of tomorrow. And personally, as CMS’s data preservation coordinator, this is a crucial part of ensuring the long-term availability of our research data,” says Lassila-Perini.
If you’re interested, you can acquire the data here.
Source: TechCrunch, CERN