FITS keywords and the year 2000 problem

[Barry M. Schlesinger]

In article <33E74594.2455 at grossc.gsfc.nasa.gov>, bridgman at grossc.gsfc.nasa.gov writes...
>We've been examining a number of our FITS file generators and are 
>concerned about possible Y2K problems in our archived FITS files.
> 
>The NOST standard seems to restrict the DATE and DATE-OBS keywords to 
>dd/mm/yy format for generating human-readable dates ...  we're 
>wondering if there are plans to appropriately update the standards.
> 
There is currently a proposal under consideration by the IAU FITS 
Working Group that provides a new date format with a four-digit year. 
The text is available at
ftp://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/fits/year2000_proposal.txt. 

					Barry Schlesinger
                                        FITS Support Office
                                        GSFC/ADF