The Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) was launched in November 1989 and has led to the discovery of fluctuations in the microwave background, as announced in April 1992. The COBE Proposer Information Package gives details of the data sets that will be available. Briefly, a limited set of data (Galactic plane data for FIRAS and DIRBE and the first year's full sky mapping for the DMR) were made available to outside investigators starting in June 1993. The complete data set will be made available in June 1994 in a variety of forms:
There are several non-COBE data sets also kept on line at the COBE analysis center (e.g., IRAS data), some of which have been reprojected and reformatted so that they ``look like'' COBE data as regards sky projection and resolution. Some of the COBE data have become available through NASA's Space Sciences Data Center (NSSDC). See the file nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov:cobe/aareadme.doc for instructions on how to access such data via anonymous FTP. For request of data on tape contact request@nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov, and for further assistance e-mail to leisawitz@stars.gsfc.nasa.gov. [References: White and Mather (1991), Isaacman (1992).]