Relational data searching for magnetospheric data using the Virtual Magnetosheric Observatory

The Virtual Magnetospheric Observatory (VMO) aims to provide a single unified search interface for magnetosperic data sets and already after only about a year of development it is sufficiently mature for scientific applications. The VMO is a multi-tiered environment composed of two peer observatories, one located at NASA/GSFC (VMO/G) and the other at UCLA (VMO/U), that divided up tasks in a complementary fashion similar to open source development methods. While the VMO/G is geared towards a relational search, the VMO/U is working on a Google-like word search. VMO/G co-develops the relational search with the Virtual Heliospheric Observatory (VHO) so users familiar with either of VMO or VHO query interfaces do not need to learn a new interface in order to work with the other VxO. This presentation will describe the VMO/G implementation of structured search and provide specific examples of scientific use cases demonstrating how the VMO enables new and faster research.