What is a .FITS file?
FITS is the Flexible Image Transport System, the standard format for astronomical data.
- Did you know
- FITS has stored telescope images and data since 1981 and is still used by NASA today.
- The FITS header is made of 80-column “card images”, a layout inherited from the era of punch cards.
- Its guiding rule, “once FITS, always FITS”, requires every change to the standard to stay backward compatible.
- What Analyser reads
- Open scientific, medical and engineering files: DICOM scans, NIfTI brain volumes, Garmin FIT/TCX activities, FITS astronomy frames, FASTA/FASTQ sequences, chemistry structures (MOL/SDF/MOL2/CIF/XYZ), Gerber/Excellon PCB data, SPICE netlists, EDF/BDF biosignals, JCAMP-DX spectra, SPSS/Stata/SAS datasets and VTK/ParaView meshes - metadata extracted entirely in-browser.
- Depth of analysis
- .FITS is an identification-grade format: Analyser recognises it from its bytes and decodes the header metadata it carries, rather than opening it in a full viewer. Formats that do get a full viewer are marked "Full" on the formats page.
- Open a .FITS file
- Drag a .FITS file onto the Analyser home page (or tap to pick one). It is identified entirely in your browser - nothing is uploaded, there is no account, and it works offline once installed.