sci@gentoo.org Gentoo Science Project The Consultative Committee on Space Data Systems (CCSDS) has adopted the extended-Rice algorithm for international standards for space applications. Szip is reported to provide fast and effective compression, specifically for the EOS data generated by the NASA Earth Observatory System (EOS). It was originally developed at University of New Mexico (UNM) and integrated with HDF4 by UNM researchers and developers. It can be used for HDF 5 as well.