Data Use Policy

Although there is no cost involved in retrieving data from MAST, researchers are requested to include an acknowledgement (as shown below) in any publications that make use of data obtained from MAST:

"Some/all of the data presented in this paper were obtained from the Multimission Archive at the Space Telescope Science Institute (MAST). STScI is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS5-26555. Support for MAST for non-HST data is provided by the NASA Office of Space Science via grant NAG5-7584 and by other grants and contracts."

Users wishing to use documents obtained from the MAST web site for other than personal use, should first contact the MAST staff at archive@stsci.edu regarding neccessary permissions and acknowledgements.

Note for Kepler Users:

Users who are not a part of the Kepler Science Team that request Kepler data from the archive must acknowledge that they will not present these data or results based on these data at a scientific meeting or submit them for publication until after January 15, 2010.

Furthermore, users of this data should note that the Kepler project considers the current delivery "browse quality" data rather than publication quality due to known issues with the processing pipeline. Please refer to the Data Release Notes (KSCI-19042) for further information.

All refereed publications based on data obtained from the Hubble Legacy Archive (HLA) are requested to carry the following footnote:

Based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, and obtained from the Hubble Legacy Archive, which is a collaboration between the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI/NASA), the Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility (ST-ECF/ESA) and the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre (CADC/NRC/CSA).

In addition, publications of research supported by an ST ScI grant must carry the following acknowledgment:

Support for Program number ____________ was provided by NASA through a grant from the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Incorporated, under NASAcontract NAS5-26555.