☄️ NASA JPL Close Approach Scraper

🚀 Export near-Earth object close approaches in seconds. Pull every asteroid and comet flyby tracked by NASA/JPL CNEOS, with distance, velocity, and brightness for each pass.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-06-05 · 📊 15 fields per record · Earth, the Moon, and every major planet · Historical and predicted approaches

Track the asteroids and comets that swing close to Earth using data straight from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The CNEOS Close-Approach Data (CAD) service catalogues every known near-Earth object pass, and this Actor turns that catalogue into clean, structured records you can drop into a notebook, a dashboard, or an alerting pipeline.

Coverage: Pick any date window, distance threshold, brightness limit, and target body. The service spans approaches that have already happened and ones predicted decades into the future, for Earth, the Moon, Mercury through Pluto, or all bodies at once.

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Primary Use Cases
Astronomers and astrophotographers	Planning observation nights around upcoming flybys
Data scientists and students	Building near-Earth object datasets for analysis
Science communicators and educators	Sourcing real numbers for articles and lessons
Developers and hobbyists	Powering sky-watch apps, bots, and alert feeds

📋 What the JPL Close Approach Scraper does

This Actor queries the NASA/JPL CNEOS Close-Approach Data API and returns one record per close approach. Each record carries the object designation and full name, the calendar and Julian close-approach date, the nominal, minimum, and maximum approach distance in astronomical units, a matching distance in lunar distances, the relative and infinity velocity in kilometres per second, the absolute magnitude H, the orbit solution ID, and the target body. A direct link to the object's JPL Small-Body Database page is included for every record.

🎬 Full Demo (🚧 Coming soon)

⚙️ Input

Configure a run with a date window, distance and brightness filters, and a target body. Every field has a sensible default, so you can run it as-is for a near-Earth sample.

Field	Type	Description
dateMin	string	Earliest close-approach date (YYYY-MM-DD or now)
dateMax	string	Latest close-approach date (YYYY-MM-DD or a span like +60)
maxDistanceAu	string	Only return approaches nearer than this distance in au
maxMagnitude	string	Optional. Only return objects brighter than this H value
body	string	Target body. Earth, the Moon, a planet, or all bodies
maxItems	integer	Free users limited to 10. Paid users up to 1,000,000

{
    "dateMin": "2026-01-01",
    "dateMax": "2026-03-01",
    "maxDistanceAu": "0.05",
    "body": "Earth",
    "maxItems": 10
}

{
    "dateMin": "2025-01-01",
    "dateMax": "2030-01-01",
    "maxDistanceAu": "0.01",
    "maxMagnitude": "22",
    "body": "Earth",
    "maxItems": 500
}

⚠️ Good to Know: The API caps a single query at a wide but finite window. For multi-decade sweeps, run several requests with adjacent date ranges. Distance is the nominal close-approach distance, with the minimum and maximum bounds reflecting orbit uncertainty.

📊 Output

Field	Description
🪨 designation	Object provisional or permanent designation
📛 fullName	Full catalogued name of the object
🌍 body	The body the object approaches
📅 closeApproachDate	Calendar date and time of closest approach (UTC)
🕓 julianDate	Julian date of closest approach
📏 nominalDistanceAu	Nominal approach distance in astronomical units
🌙 nominalDistanceLd	Nominal approach distance in lunar distances
📐 minDistanceAu	Minimum possible approach distance (au)
📐 maxDistanceAu	Maximum possible approach distance (au)
🚀 relativeVelocityKmS	Velocity relative to the body at approach (km/s)
💫 infinityVelocityKmS	Velocity at infinity (km/s)
✨ absoluteMagnitude	Absolute magnitude H (smaller means larger object)
🛰 orbitId	Orbit solution identifier
🔗 sourceUrl	Link to the JPL Small-Body Database lookup
🕒 scrapedAt	Timestamp of when the record was collected

Sample records from a live run:

{
    "designation": "2025 YL4",
    "fullName": "(2025 YL4)",
    "body": "Earth",
    "closeApproachDate": "2026-Jan-01 15:44",
    "julianDate": 2461042.155848,
    "nominalDistanceAu": 0.00969853,
    "nominalDistanceLd": 3.7744,
    "minDistanceAu": 0.00966626,
    "maxDistanceAu": 0.0097308,
    "relativeVelocityKmS": 9.8181,
    "infinityVelocityKmS": 9.7901,
    "absoluteMagnitude": 26.67,
    "orbitId": "4",
    "sourceUrl": "https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/tools/sbdb_lookup.html#/?sstr=2025%20YL4",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-06-05T15:56:03.180Z",
    "error": null
}

{
    "designation": "2025 XC7",
    "fullName": "(2025 XC7)",
    "body": "Earth",
    "closeApproachDate": "2026-Jan-01 23:42",
    "julianDate": 2461042.487163,
    "nominalDistanceAu": 0.02282497,
    "nominalDistanceLd": 8.8828,
    "minDistanceAu": 0.0228117,
    "maxDistanceAu": 0.02283823,
    "relativeVelocityKmS": 6.5598,
    "infinityVelocityKmS": 6.542,
    "absoluteMagnitude": 25.41,
    "orbitId": "16",
    "sourceUrl": "https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/tools/sbdb_lookup.html#/?sstr=2025%20XC7",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-06-05T15:56:03.281Z",
    "error": null
}

{
    "designation": "2025 YZ",
    "fullName": "(2025 YZ)",
    "body": "Earth",
    "closeApproachDate": "2026-Jan-02 05:29",
    "julianDate": 2461042.72881,
    "nominalDistanceAu": 0.03618111,
    "nominalDistanceLd": 14.0806,
    "minDistanceAu": 0.03592027,
    "maxDistanceAu": 0.03644194,
    "relativeVelocityKmS": 6.6676,
    "infinityVelocityKmS": 6.6565,
    "absoluteMagnitude": 25.41,
    "orbitId": "4",
    "sourceUrl": "https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/tools/sbdb_lookup.html#/?sstr=2025%20YZ",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-06-05T15:56:03.304Z",
    "error": null
}

✨ Why choose this Actor

• Data comes directly from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the authoritative source for near-Earth object tracking.
• Distances arrive in both astronomical units and lunar distances, so you can read a flyby at a glance.
• Filters for date, distance, brightness, and body let you target exactly the passes you care about.
• Each record links straight to the JPL Small-Body Database for deeper orbit and physical data.
• Clean, flat records that drop straight into spreadsheets, notebooks, and databases.

📈 How it compares to alternatives

Approach	Setup	Filtering	Structured output
This Actor	None, run and go	Date, distance, magnitude, body	Yes, 15 flat fields
Reading the CNEOS web table	Manual copy paste	Limited	No
Writing your own API client	Hours of coding	You build it	You build it

🚀 How to use

1. Sign up for a free Apify account using this link.
2. Open the JPL Close Approach Scraper and click Try for free.
3. Set your date window, distance threshold, and target body, or keep the defaults.
4. Click Start and watch the records arrive.
5. Browse the results in the table view or pull them through the Apify API into your own tools.

💼 Business use cases

Media and science communication

Need	How this helps
Timely flyby coverage	Surface upcoming close approaches with real distances and dates
Fact-checked numbers	Source figures directly from NASA/JPL

Education and outreach

Need	How this helps
Classroom datasets	Hand students real near-Earth object records to analyse
Observation planning	Pick targets bright enough for a given telescope

Software and apps

Need	How this helps
Sky-watch features	Feed a clean flyby feed into an app or bot
Alerting	Flag objects passing within a chosen distance

Research and analysis

Need	How this helps
Population studies	Build datasets across years and bodies
Velocity and size trends	Combine magnitude and velocity fields for analysis

🔌 Automating JPL Close Approach Scraper

Connect this Actor to the tools your team already uses:

• Make and Zapier to trigger runs and route records into other apps.
• Slack to post alerts when an object passes within a set distance.
• Airbyte to sync results into a warehouse.
• GitHub Actions to schedule recurring pulls.
• Google Drive to archive each run for later analysis.

🌟 Beyond business use cases

• Research: assemble multi-year near-Earth object catalogues for study.
• Personal: plan a night of asteroid spotting around the next bright flyby.
• Non-profit: power free public sky-watch resources and newsletters.
• Experimentation: prototype space-themed visualisations and bots.

🤖 Ask an AI assistant

Paste your results into ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, or Microsoft Copilot and ask questions like which object passes closest this month, or how velocity relates to approach distance across the dataset.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

Where does the data come from? The NASA/JPL CNEOS Close-Approach Data API, the official near-Earth object tracking service maintained by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Do I need an API key? No. The source is public and keyless. Just run the Actor.

What is a lunar distance? The mean distance from Earth to the Moon. One astronomical unit equals roughly 389 lunar distances, so the Moon sits at one LD.

What does absolute magnitude H mean? A measure of intrinsic brightness. A smaller H generally means a larger object.

Can I track approaches to other planets? Yes. Choose the Moon, Mercury through Pluto, or all bodies at once in the body field.

Does it include past approaches? Yes. Set a start date in the past to retrieve historical passes.

How far into the future does it go? The service predicts approaches decades ahead. Use a future end date to retrieve them.

Why are there minimum and maximum distances? They reflect the uncertainty in the object's orbit. The nominal value is the best estimate.

How many records can I get? Free runs return up to 10 records. Paid plans return up to 1,000,000.

What is the orbit ID? An identifier for the specific orbit solution used to compute the approach.

🔌 Integrate with any app

Every run writes to an Apify storage you can read through the API, webhooks, or any of the supported integrations, so the records flow straight into your stack.

🔗 Recommended Actors

• NASA Exoplanet Archive Scraper
• Solar System Bodies Scraper
• NOAA SWPC Space Weather Scraper

💡 Pro Tip: browse the complete ParseForge collection.

🆘 Need Help? Open our contact form

⚠️ Disclaimer: independent tool, not affiliated with NASA or the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Only publicly available data collected.