Benchmarking dispelled our concerns with inefficiency and the wide-spread adoption of the binary tables format within FITS has alleviated the second although limits on FITS metadata and lack of a standard mechanism to define relationships among FITS files remain a concern. The FITS standard is maintained by the International Astronomical Union . We have also worked extensively with other organizations, notably the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, in defining FITS metadata standards for high-energy astronomy. Software FITS is supported by a wide variety of packages and software libraries. FITS data can be trivially converted to and from data structures in this environment.
Universal acceptance allows easy integration of data from multiple sources.
Large infrastructure of FITS resources in the astronomy community. Well defined process for adopting modifications. A number of important features are not fully within the definition of the standard. FITS does not completely specify data. It is easy to write data that another user cannot use even if both use 'FITS'.