Overview:

The General Coordinates Network (GCN) is a public collaboration platform run by NASA for the astronomy research community. It allows users to share alerts and rapid communications about high-energy, multimessenger, and transient phenomena. The GCN website (https://gcn.nasa.gov) is the source code for this platform. It facilitates the distribution of alerts between space- and ground-based observatories, physics experiments, and thousands of astronomers worldwide.

Features:

• Public collaboration platform for the astronomy research community.
• Facilitates sharing of alerts and rapid communications about high-energy, multimessenger, and transient phenomena.
• Distributes alerts between space- and ground-based observatories, physics experiments, and astronomers worldwide.

Installation:

To get started with local development, follow these steps:

1. Clone the source code repository from GitHub.
2. Install Node.js.
3. Check the CI (Continuous Integration) status for the project.
4. Set up Codecov for code coverage analysis.
5. Refer to the Contributing guide for detailed instructions on getting started.

Summary:

The General Coordinates Network (GCN) is a platform developed by NASA for the astronomy research community. It provides a means for sharing alerts and rapid communications about various phenomena and facilitates collaboration between space- and ground-based observatories, physics experiments, and astronomers globally. The source code for the GCN website can be found on GitHub, and local development can be set up by following the installation instructions provided.