☄️ NASA JPL Fireball Events Scraper

🚀 Export atmospheric fireball and bolide events in seconds. Pull every recorded fireball straight from NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies, with energy, location, altitude, and velocity for each event.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-06-05 · 📊 Up to 14 fields per record · 1,000+ recorded events · global atmospheric coverage

Track bright meteors and bolides detected by US Government sensors using the same public catalog NASA/JPL publishes for researchers. This Actor reads the keyless CNEOS Fireball API and returns clean, per event records with the newest events first.

Coverage spans more than a thousand fireball events going back over three decades. Each event carries its UTC peak brightness time, total radiated energy, estimated total impact energy in kilotons, latitude and longitude, peak brightness altitude, and where reported the pre entry velocity together with its three velocity components.

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Primary Use Cases
Astronomers and meteor researchers	Map bolide events and study energy distribution
Planetary defense and NEO analysts	Track impact energy and atmospheric entries
Data scientists and educators	Build fireball time series and teaching datasets
Science journalists and hobbyists	Find recent bright meteors over a region

📋 What the NASA JPL Fireball Events Scraper does

This Actor connects to the NASA/JPL CNEOS Fireball API and returns one structured record per fireball event. Latitude and longitude arrive from the source as a magnitude plus a direction, so the Actor converts them into signed decimal coordinates ready to plot, while keeping the original direction letters for reference.

• Event timing the UTC date and time of peak brightness.
• Energy total radiated energy in joules times 10^10 and estimated total impact energy in kilotons of TNT.
• Location signed latitude and longitude of peak brightness, plus the original N/S and E/W directions.
• Altitude the height above the reference geoid at peak brightness in kilometers.
• Velocity the pre entry speed in kilometers per second and its x, y, and z components when reported.

🎬 Full Demo (🚧 Coming soon)

⚙️ Input

Optionally cap how many events you want, then narrow the catalog by date, minimum energy, or whether a location was reported. The newest events are returned first.

Field	Type	Description
maxItems	integer	Maximum number of events to return. Free plan is limited to 10.
dateMin	string	Only events on or after this UTC date or date time. Accepts YYYY-MM-DD.
dateMax	string	Only events on or before this UTC date or date time. Accepts YYYY-MM-DD.
energyMin	number	Only events whose total radiated energy in joules times 10^10 is at least this value.
requireLocation	boolean	When enabled, only events that have a reported latitude and longitude are returned.

Example, the latest fireball events:

{
  "maxItems": 10
}

Example, energetic events with a known location since 2020:

{
  "maxItems": 100,
  "dateMin": "2020-01-01",
  "energyMin": 5,
  "requireLocation": true
}

⚠️ Good to Know: Velocity and its three components are only available for events where the reporting sensor measured them. For many older or partially reported events the velocity fields are null, while energy, time, and location are still present. This reflects the source catalog and is not a gap in collection.

📊 Output

Each record below is from a real run of this Actor.

Field	Description
🕒 date	UTC date and time of peak brightness
✨ energy	Total radiated energy in joules times 10^10
💥 impactEnergy	Estimated total impact energy in kilotons of TNT
🌐 latitude	Signed latitude of peak brightness
🌐 longitude	Signed longitude of peak brightness
🧭 latitudeDirection	Original latitude direction, N or S
🧭 longitudeDirection	Original longitude direction, E or W
📏 altitude	Altitude of peak brightness in kilometers
🚀 velocity	Pre entry velocity in kilometers per second
➡️ velocityX	Velocity x component in kilometers per second
⬆️ velocityY	Velocity y component in kilometers per second
🔼 velocityZ	Velocity z component in kilometers per second
🔗 sourceUrl	The NASA/JPL Fireball API endpoint
🕒 scrapedAt	When this record was collected
❌ error	Error message, null on success

Real sample records:

{
  "date": "2026-05-30 18:06:23",
  "energy": 42.1,
  "impactEnergy": 1.1,
  "latitude": 42,
  "longitude": -70.5,
  "latitudeDirection": "N",
  "longitudeDirection": "W",
  "altitude": 32,
  "velocity": null,
  "velocityX": null,
  "velocityY": null,
  "velocityZ": null,
  "sourceUrl": "https://ssd-api.jpl.nasa.gov/fireball.api",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-06-05T15:56:12.041Z",
  "error": null
}

{
  "date": "2026-05-21 02:15:51",
  "energy": 3.5,
  "impactEnergy": 0.12,
  "latitude": 46.6,
  "longitude": 133.1,
  "latitudeDirection": "N",
  "longitudeDirection": "E",
  "altitude": 31.5,
  "velocity": 15.8,
  "velocityX": 14.4,
  "velocityY": -6.5,
  "velocityZ": 1,
  "sourceUrl": "https://ssd-api.jpl.nasa.gov/fireball.api",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-06-05T15:56:12.113Z",
  "error": null
}

{
  "date": "2026-05-10 16:57:37",
  "energy": 6,
  "impactEnergy": 0.19,
  "latitude": -45.6,
  "longitude": -109.8,
  "latitudeDirection": "S",
  "longitudeDirection": "W",
  "altitude": 32.7,
  "velocity": 22.9,
  "velocityX": -13,
  "velocityY": 18.7,
  "velocityZ": 2.1,
  "sourceUrl": "https://ssd-api.jpl.nasa.gov/fireball.api",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-06-05T15:56:12.154Z",
  "error": null
}

✨ Why choose this Actor

• Official source. Data comes straight from the NASA/JPL CNEOS Fireball API, the same catalog used by planetary defense researchers.
• Plot ready coordinates. Latitude and longitude are converted into signed decimals while the original direction letters stay available.
• Honest fields. Velocity is reported only when the source measured it, and the Actor never pads missing values with fake numbers.
• Useful filters. Narrow by date window, minimum radiated energy, or whether a location was reported.
• No keys required. The source is keyless, so you can run it right away.

📈 How it compares to alternatives

Approach	Coverage	Signed coordinates	Velocity components	Filters
This Actor	Full CNEOS catalog	Yes	Yes when reported	Date, energy, location
Manual API calls	Full catalog	No, magnitude plus direction	Only with extra parameter	Manual
Static dataset dumps	Often stale	Varies	Varies	None

🚀 How to use

1. Sign up for a free Apify account using this link.
2. Open the NASA JPL Fireball Events Scraper.
3. Optionally set a date window, a minimum energy, or require a known location.
4. Set how many events you want with maxItems, then start the run.
5. Collect your structured fireball records when the run finishes.

💼 Business use cases

🛡 Planetary defense monitoring

Need	How this Actor helps
Track atmospheric entries	Pull recent events with impact energy and altitude
Flag energetic bolides	Filter by minimum radiated energy

🔭 Scientific research

Need	How this Actor helps
Study energy distribution	Build datasets of radiated and impact energy
Analyze entry geometry	Use velocity components for trajectory work

🗺 Geospatial analysis

Need	How this Actor helps
Map fireballs by region	Use signed latitude and longitude directly
Focus on located events	Require a reported location

🎓 Education and outreach

Need	How this Actor helps
Build classroom datasets	Return clean, per event records
Find recent bright meteors	Sort by the newest events first

🔌 Automating NASA JPL Fireball Events Scraper

Connect this Actor to your stack so new fireball events flow where you need them.

• Make trigger a scenario when a run finishes and route records onward.
• Zapier push new events into a sheet or notification.
• Slack post a message when a new energetic bolide appears.
• Airbyte sync records into your warehouse.
• GitHub kick off runs from your workflows.
• Google Drive archive each run for later analysis.

🌟 Beyond business use cases

• Research assemble a long term fireball catalog for statistical study.
• Personal watch for bright meteors reported over your part of the world.
• Non-profit support science communication with current, sourced data.
• Experimentation prototype impact energy models and entry simulations.

🤖 Ask an AI assistant

Drop your records into an assistant and ask it to summarize, cluster, or chart them.

• ChatGPT
• Claude
• Perplexity
• Microsoft Copilot

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

Where does the data come from? The NASA/JPL CNEOS Fireball API, a public catalog of atmospheric fireball and bolide events detected by US Government sensors.

Do I need an API key? No. The source is keyless, so the Actor works out of the box.

Why is velocity null on some events? Velocity and its components are only published when the reporting sensor measured them. Energy, time, and location are still returned for those events.

What does the energy field mean? It is the total radiated energy in joules times 10^10, the same unit the source uses.

What is impact energy? The estimated total impact energy in kilotons of TNT, derived by the source from the radiated energy.

Are the coordinates ready to plot? Yes. The Actor converts the source magnitude and direction into a signed decimal latitude and longitude, and keeps the direction letters too.

Can I filter by date? Yes. Use dateMin and dateMax with a YYYY-MM-DD date or a full date time.

Can I get only energetic events? Yes. Set energyMin to a minimum total radiated energy.

How many events are available? The catalog holds more than a thousand events and grows as new fireballs are reported.

How current is the data? Each run reads the live API, so you always get the latest reported events first.

🔌 Integrate with any app

Records can be picked up by any tool that reads the Apify API, so you can send fireball events into dashboards, sheets, warehouses, or alerting workflows.

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💡 Pro Tip: browse the complete ParseForge collection.

🆘 Need Help? Open our contact form

⚠️ Disclaimer: independent tool, not affiliated with NASA or JPL. Only publicly available data collected.