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IRAS Faint Source Catalog

Metadata Updated: January 16, 2026

The Faint Source Survey (FSS) is the definitive IRAS data set for faint point sources. The FSS was produced by point-source filtering the individual detector data streams and then coadding those data streams using a trimmed-average algorithm. The resulting images, or plates, give the best estimate from the IRAS survey data of the point source flux density at every surveyed point of the sky. The Faint Source Catalog (FSC) is a compilation of the sources extracted from the FSS plates that have met reasonable reliability requirements. Averaged over the whole catalog, the FSC is at least 98.5% reliable at 12 and 25 microns, and ~94% at 60 microns. For comparison, the IRAS Point Source Catalog (PSC) is > 99.997% reliable, but the sensitivity of the FSC exceeds that of the PSC by about a factor of 2.5. The FSC contains data for 173,044 point sources in unconfused regions with flux densities typically greater than 0.2 Jy at 12, 25, and 60 microns and greater than 1.0 Jy at 100 microns.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date January 16, 2026

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date January 16, 2026
Publisher NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive
Maintainer
Identifier ivo://irsa.ipac/iras/catalog/fsc
Data Last Modified 2026-01-13
Category Astrophysics
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 9b8a6dc0-d0ea-4db5-bce1-3c4ba254b67f
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Homepage URL https://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/IRASdocs/surveys/fsc.html
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash d0a1f9d1b98e31724d93b97536413c70bcfb9ac314330365d229da6d248194fa
Source Schema Version 1.1

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