Reports
Gameplay of Deep Sky revolves around reports. When new star is discovered, a report is generated and the player is able to view known details of the star in respective star system view. When the star is observed by scienctists, more details are revealed and report get more detailed. Unknown things become known and incorrectly measured facts are replaced with correct facts. Same principle holds for pretty much anything in the game. Even situation on a planet that is part of faction’s domain is based on reports.
Data shown is almost always stamped with the date when the latest observation was made. This might mean that all of the data was updated or only part of it. When planning long distance operations, it makes sense to pay attention to how recent the data is.