For a non-earth viewing instrument, such as the SORCE instruments which monitor the sun, how should the spatial metadata be specified?
At the collection level should there be a Spatial BoundingRectangle defined (-90 to +90 latitude, -180 to +180 longitude) so that its implied the product is applicable for the entire globe even though the instrument is not viewing the earth? Or should there be absolutely no Spatial BoundingRectangle specified?
We do not receive granule spatial metadata for these types of data, as they are not earth-viewing, so we set the Granule_Spatial_Representation attribute to NO_SPATIAL. This has consequences in earthdata search client. If the search doesn't include a spatial search area (i.e. its left blank), then the client returns the data correctly. But if the user supplies an arbitrary spatial search area, then the client will not return the data. To me that is incorrect. If the data are applicable to the entire globe, then any spatial search, including none, should always return these solar data products.