NASA JPL Small-Body Database Scraper — Asteroids & Comets

Extract comprehensive orbital and physical data for 1.5+ million asteroids, comets, and other small bodies directly from NASA/JPL's authoritative Small-Body Database (SBDB) Query API. This Actor provides instant access to detailed orbital elements, magnitude classifications, and planetary defense metrics — essential for astronomy research, planetary defense, education, and space industry applications.

The SBDB is NASA's primary reference catalog for solar system small bodies, continuously updated with observations and refined orbital parameters. Every asteroid and comet accessible through this Actor comes with validated orbital mechanics data, absolute magnitude, and classification metrics used by scientists and engineers worldwide.

Key Features

• 1.5M+ small bodies — Complete asteroid and comet database in a single fetch
• Full orbital mechanics — Semi-major axis, eccentricity, inclination, longitude of ascending node, argument of perihelion, mean anomaly, orbital period
• Planetary defense data — Earth MOID (Minimum Orbit Intersection Distance), absolute magnitude (H), and PHA (Potentially Hazardous Asteroid) flag
• NEO filtering — Isolate Near-Earth Objects (NEO) for space tracking and hazard analysis
• Orbit classification — Filter by orbit class (MBA, AMO, APO, IEO, ATE, AST) for research specialization
• No authentication required — Free, public NASA API with no rate limits
• High-precision numeric output — All orbital elements as floating-point for computational use
• Clean, research-ready JSON — Structured output suitable for RAG pipelines, scientific databases, or ML training

Output Data Fields

Field	Type	Description
fullName	string	Designations and/or names of the small body (e.g., "1 Ceres", "C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS)")
neo	boolean	Near-Earth Object flag (Y/N) — bodies with orbits that come within 1.3 AU of Earth
pha	boolean	Potentially Hazardous Asteroid flag (Y/N) — absolute magnitude ≤ 22 and MOID ≤ 0.05 AU
absoluteMagnitude	number	Absolute magnitude (H) — intrinsic brightness used to compute size/mass
semiMajorAxisAU	number	Semi-major axis in AU (Astronomical Units) — defines orbital size
eccentricity	number	Orbital eccentricity (0 = circular, 1 = parabolic) — defines orbital shape
inclinationDeg	number	Orbital inclination in degrees — angle above/below ecliptic plane
longitudeOfAscendingNode	number	Longitude of ascending node in degrees — orbital orientation
argumentOfPerihelion	number	Argument of perihelion in degrees — angle to closest solar approach
meanAnomaly	number	Mean anomaly in degrees — position in orbit at epoch
orbitalPeriodDays	number	Orbital period in days — time to complete one orbit
earthMOID_AU	number	Minimum Orbit Intersection Distance to Earth in AU — hazard metric
orbitClass	string	Orbit classification (MBA=Main Belt, AMO=Amor, APO=Apollo, IEO=Aten, ATE=Aten, AST=asteroids, etc.)
firstObservation	string	Date of earliest observation (YYYY-MM-DD format)
dataProducer	string	Data source/producer identifier

How to Extract Asteroid and Comet Data

1. Navigate to the NASA JPL Small-Body Database Scraper on the Apify Store.
2. Click Start to open the input configuration.
3. (Optional) Select Small Body Kind to filter:
   • "a" = asteroids only (default, ~1.4M bodies)
   • "c" = comets only (~4k bodies)
   • "" = all bodies
4. (Optional) Toggle Near-Earth Objects Only to retrieve only NEOs (bodies with orbits crossing Earth's).
5. (Optional) Toggle Potentially Hazardous Asteroids Only to focus on high-priority defense-relevant bodies.
6. (Optional) Enter an Orbit Class Filter (e.g., "MBA", "AMO", "APO") to narrow by orbital family.
7. Set Max Results to control output size (default: 1000, supports up to 50,000).
8. Click Start to run.
9. Download results as JSON, CSV, or Excel from the Dataset tab.

Input Example

{
    "sbKind": "a",
    "neoOnly": true,
    "phaOnly": false,
    "orbitClass": "",
    "maxResults": 500
}

This fetches up to 500 Near-Earth asteroids with all orbital elements.

Output Example

{
    "fullName": "99942 Apophis (2004 MN4)",
    "neo": true,
    "pha": true,
    "absoluteMagnitude": 19.7,
    "semiMajorAxisAU": 1.0993,
    "eccentricity": 0.1912,
    "inclinationDeg": 3.3911,
    "longitudeOfAscendingNode": 204.4267,
    "argumentOfPerihelion": 126.4051,
    "meanAnomaly": 285.9715,
    "orbitalPeriodDays": 325.63,
    "earthMOID_AU": 0.0002373,
    "orbitClass": "APO",
    "firstObservation": "2004-06-15",
    "dataProducer": "ORB"
}

Pricing

This Actor queries a free public API in a single HTTP request. Compute usage is minimal.

• Cost per run: ~$0.0005–0.001 (single API call, no browser required)
• Actor start event: Default platform rate
• Per-result pricing: $0.001/result

Typical run time is 10–30 seconds regardless of filter settings.

Use Cases

• Planetary defense research — Track potentially hazardous asteroids and compute collision probabilities
• Astronomy education — Build interactive solar system visualizations with real orbital data
• Space industry — Assess asteroid mining targets, compute orbital mechanics for mission planning
• Scientific databases — Populate research pipelines with authoritative SBDB data
• LLM training & RAG — Feed orbital mechanics data to LLMs for space science Q&A systems
• Hazard assessment — Analyze NEO populations, monitor newly discovered bodies, track orbital refinements
• Citizen science — Enable crowdsourced asteroid observation and data enrichment programs

FAQ

Q: How often is this data updated? A: The NASA SBDB is updated continuously as new observations are made and orbital refinements are published. Each run pulls the latest data from NASA's API.

Q: What is MOID? A: Minimum Orbit Intersection Distance — the closest distance between the asteroid's orbit and Earth's orbit. A low MOID (< 0.05 AU) is a key indicator of planetary hazard.

Q: Are comets included? A: Yes. Set "Small Body Kind" to "c" or "" (all bodies) to include comets. Default is asteroids only.

Q: What does NEO mean? A: Near-Earth Object — any small body with an orbit that brings it within 1.3 AU of Earth. These are of highest interest for planetary defense.

Q: What does PHA mean? A: Potentially Hazardous Asteroid — an asteroid with absolute magnitude ≤ 22 (roughly 140m diameter or larger) and MOID ≤ 0.05 AU. PHAs are tracked by planetary defense agencies.

Q: Can I filter by discovery date? A: The current version includes the firstObservation field in output, allowing you to post-filter in your pipeline. Future versions may add date-range filtering to the input schema.

Q: Is this data suitable for ML/AI training? A: Yes. The structured orbital mechanics data is ideal for training ML models on solar system dynamics, hazard prediction, or astronomical classification tasks.

Legal & Attribution

This Actor fetches data from NASA's Small-Body Database, which is in the public domain. No authentication or API key is required. Please attribute NASA/JPL as the data source in any publications or derivative works.

For more information on the SBDB:

• NASA SSD Small-Body Database: https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.html
• SBDB Query API Documentation: https://ssd-api.jpl.nasa.gov/doc/sbdb_query.html

This Actor is provided under the MIT License and is not affiliated with or endorsed by NASA or JPL.