Introduction Search Fields Author Controlled Index Numerical Chemical Astronomical Tutorials

Numerical Data Search

Here is a list of data searches that can help limit your search.

age (year)	Used for cosmological, geological, archaeological and biological time scales.
altitude (meter)	Measured from surface (liquid or solid) for Earth and all planetary bodies. Measured from photosphere for Sun. For negative values use depth.
depth (meter)	Measured from surface (liquid or solid) for Earth and all planetary bodies. Measured from the photosphere (optical depth 1) for Sun. For negative values use "altitude".
distance (meter)
electron volt energy (electron volt)	Used: a) for atomic and molecular parameters, b) for high energy cosmic radiation, c) in nuclear and particle physics for device parameters, i.e. accelerators, beam transport equipment, etc. Not used: a) for projectile energies, b) for level energies, c) for particle masses.
energy (joule)
frequency (hertz)	Used for all waves: electromagnetic, acoustic, gravitational, etc.
galactic distance (parsec)	Used for interstellar distances measured from solar system, not from galactic centre (not galactocentric distances), and for intergalactic distances. Within the solar system, use heliocentric distance.
geocentric distance (meter)	Used for magnetospheric scale out to about 100 Earth radii. For atmospheric scale use altitude.
heliocentric distance (astronomical unit)	For distances beyond the solar system use galactic distance.
mass (kilogram)
size (meter)
stellar mass (solar mass)	Used for stars only, i.e. not nebulae, star clusters, galaxies, etc.
temperature (kelvin)	Used for absolute temperatures and not temperature differences.
velocity (meters per second)
wavelength (meter)	Used for all waves: electromagnetic, acoustic, gravitational, etc.

Information in this table taken from IET Numerical Indexing

Sample search

Let's say you are doing a search for brown dwarfs, so you enter "brown dwarf" as your search. You get almost 1300 records. This is too many records and you only want those with a stellar mass of about 0.013 M_sol. INSPEC has a numerical field search for stellar mass.

First, make sure you are in INSPEC otherwise you cannot use the search. It should be the white tab when selected. If not, click the "Select a Database" tab and then click INSPEC. Once in INSPEC, click the pull down menu and scroll until you reach "stellar mass".

Now we input a range of 0.01 to 0.015 M_sol, and click "Search".

The number of records has been reduced from almost 1300 to a manageable 26.

In the sample above a range for stellar mass was input, but the numerical searches don't just search a specific range, you can search for values greater than, less than, or equal to a specific value. Values can be input as integers, decimal figures, or in scientific notation. The following from the INSPEC Help explains how to do each search.

This search will retrieve records with a temperature value between 1.0E+02 Kelvin and 2.0E+03 Kelvin. It will also retrieve records with a range of values between 1.0E+02 and 2.0E+03 inclusive. Inclusive means that if any value between the minimum and maximum values of the query match any value between the minimum and maximum values in a record, the record will be retrieved.

To take another example, the query range 100 to 300 would retrieve records containing these ranges:

50 to 159 (because 159 lies within the query range)
300 to 450 (because 300 lies within the query range)
190 to 260 (because both 190 and 260 lie within the query range)

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Photo of Titan by NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

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