🪐 NASA Exoplanet Archive Scraper

🚀 Export the confirmed planet catalogue in seconds. Pull from a live archive of 6,298 confirmed exoplanets with orbital, planetary and host star measurements in one structured feed.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-06-04 · 📊 14 fields per record · 6,298 confirmed planets · 11 detection methods

The NASA Exoplanet Archive Scraper turns the official NASA Exoplanet Archive into a clean, structured dataset. It queries the archive's public TAP service and returns one canonical row per confirmed planet, complete with discovery details, orbital mechanics and host star properties.

Coverage spans every confirmed planet in the Planetary Systems table, from the first radial velocity detections to the latest TESS transits. Filter by detection method, discovery year, or host star name, and the actor builds a safe query against the archive so you only download the records you need.

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Primary Use Cases
Astronomers and astrophysics researchers	Building exoplanet datasets for analysis
Data scientists and ML engineers	Training and benchmarking models on planet data
Science educators and students	Classroom datasets and demonstrations
Science journalists and communicators	Fact-checking and sourcing discovery stats
Hobbyist astronomers and developers	Powering apps, dashboards and visualisations

📋 What the NASA Exoplanet Archive Scraper does

This actor connects to the NASA Exoplanet Archive Table Access Protocol (TAP) endpoint and pulls confirmed exoplanet records from the Planetary Systems table. For each planet it returns the planet name, host star, discovery method, discovery year, discovery facility, orbital period, planet radius and mass in Earth units, semi major axis, system distance in parsecs, stellar temperature, and the number of stars and planets in the system.

You can run it three ways. Leave the filters empty to get the most recently confirmed planets, pick a detection method such as Transit or Microlensing, set a discovery year, or name a single host star to retrieve its entire planetary system. Filters combine, so you can ask for every Microlensing planet confirmed in 2023.

🎬 Full Demo (🚧 Coming soon)

⚙️ Input

Field	Type	Required	Description
discoveryMethod	select	No	Detection technique to filter by. Defaults to Any Method.
discoveryYear	integer	No	Calendar year a planet was confirmed, for example 2023.
hostStar	string	No	Exact host star name, case insensitive, for example TOI-1136.
maxItems	integer	No	Cap on returned records. Free plans are limited to 10.

Example 1. Most recently confirmed planets.

{
  "maxItems": 10
}

Example 2. Every Microlensing planet confirmed in 2023.

{
  "discoveryMethod": "Microlensing",
  "discoveryYear": 2023,
  "maxItems": 50
}

⚠️ Good to Know: The TAP service can take a few seconds to respond on large queries. Some measurements such as planet mass or orbital period are not published for every planet, so those fields can be empty on individual records while always present for well studied systems.

📊 Output

Field	Description
🪐 planetName	Confirmed planet designation
⭐ hostName	Host star name
🔬 discoveryMethod	Detection technique
📅 discoveryYear	Year the planet was confirmed
🔭 discoveryFacility	Observatory or mission that found it
🔄 orbitalPeriodDays	Orbital period in days
📏 planetRadiusEarth	Planet radius in Earth radii
⚖ planetMassEarth	Planet mass in Earth masses
🛰 orbitSemiMajorAxisAu	Semi major axis in astronomical units
📡 distanceParsecs	System distance in parsecs
🌡 stellarTempK	Host star effective temperature in Kelvin
🌟 numStarsInSystem	Number of stars in the system
🌌 numPlanetsInSystem	Number of planets in the system
🔗 sourceUrl	Archive overview page for the planet

Real sample records:

{
  "planetName": "TOI-2384 b",
  "hostName": "TOI-2384",
  "discoveryMethod": "Transit",
  "discoveryYear": 2024,
  "discoveryFacility": "Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS)",
  "orbitalPeriodDays": 2.13570304,
  "planetRadiusEarth": 11.48920522,
  "planetMassEarth": 624.85064816,
  "orbitSemiMajorAxisAu": 0.02793,
  "distanceParsecs": 191.51,
  "stellarTempK": 3943,
  "numStarsInSystem": 1,
  "numPlanetsInSystem": 1,
  "sourceUrl": "https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/overview/TOI-2384%20b",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-06-04T19:39:25.926Z",
  "error": null
}

{
  "planetName": "TOI-4010 b",
  "hostName": "TOI-4010",
  "discoveryMethod": "Transit",
  "discoveryYear": 2023,
  "discoveryFacility": "Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS)",
  "orbitalPeriodDays": 1.348335,
  "planetRadiusEarth": 3.02,
  "planetMassEarth": 11,
  "orbitSemiMajorAxisAu": 0.0229,
  "distanceParsecs": 177.504,
  "stellarTempK": 4960,
  "numStarsInSystem": 1,
  "numPlanetsInSystem": 4,
  "sourceUrl": "https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/overview/TOI-4010%20b",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-06-04T19:39:25.999Z",
  "error": null
}

{
  "planetName": "EPIC 212297394 c",
  "hostName": "EPIC 212297394",
  "discoveryMethod": "Transit",
  "discoveryYear": 2021,
  "discoveryFacility": "K2",
  "orbitalPeriodDays": 5.213965,
  "planetRadiusEarth": 2.27,
  "planetMassEarth": null,
  "orbitSemiMajorAxisAu": null,
  "distanceParsecs": 418.395,
  "stellarTempK": 5171,
  "numStarsInSystem": 1,
  "numPlanetsInSystem": 2,
  "sourceUrl": "https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/overview/EPIC%20212297394%20c",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-06-04T19:39:26.030Z",
  "error": null
}

✨ Why choose this Actor

• Pulls directly from the official NASA Exoplanet Archive, the authoritative source for confirmed planets.
• Returns one canonical row per planet using the archive's default parameter set, so you avoid duplicate measurements.
• Builds the query safely from your inputs, with a fixed column whitelist and validated filter values.
• Covers 11 detection methods and 6,298 confirmed planets, refreshed as the archive updates.
• No account or key needed on the source side. Point it at a method, year, or host star and run.

📈 How it compares to alternatives

Approach	Setup effort	Structured output	Filtering	Maintenance
This actor	Minutes	Yes, 14 clean fields	Method, year, host star	Handled for you
Writing raw TAP queries	Hours of ADQL	Manual parsing	Manual	You maintain it
Copying tables by hand	Very high	None	None	Constant rework

🚀 How to use

1. Sign up for a free Apify account using this link.
2. Open the NASA Exoplanet Archive Scraper in the Apify Console.
3. Choose a discovery method, year, or host star, or leave the filters empty for recent planets.
4. Set how many records you want and click Start.
5. When the run finishes, open the dataset to review and use your exoplanet records.

💼 Business use cases

Research and analytics

Use case	Benefit
Building analysis datasets	Start from clean, structured planet records
Cross study comparisons	Compare planets across methods and facilities

Data and machine learning

Use case	Benefit
Model training data	Feed orbital and physical parameters into models
Feature engineering	Derive density, insolation and other metrics

Education and outreach

Use case	Benefit
Classroom datasets	Hand students real, current planet data
Interactive demos	Power teaching visualisations

Media and communication

Use case	Benefit
Story fact-checking	Verify discovery years and counts
Data journalism	Source statistics for science coverage

🔌 Automating NASA Exoplanet Archive Scraper

Connect the actor to the tools you already use.

• Make: trigger a run and route records into any scenario.
• Zapier: pass new planet records into thousands of apps.
• Slack: post fresh discoveries to a channel.
• Airbyte: load records into your warehouse.
• GitHub: schedule runs from your workflows.
• Google Drive: archive run results to a shared folder.

🌟 Beyond business use cases

• Research: assemble custom catalogues for a specific question.
• Personal: build a planet tracker or a hobby visualisation.
• Non-profit: support open science and public education projects.
• Experimentation: prototype astronomy apps and notebooks quickly.

🤖 Ask an AI assistant

Drop your dataset into an assistant and ask it to summarise or analyse the planets.

• ChatGPT
• Claude
• Perplexity
• Microsoft Copilot

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

Where does the data come from? The official NASA Exoplanet Archive, queried through its public Table Access Protocol service.

Which planets are included? Confirmed planets from the Planetary Systems table, using the archive's default parameter set so you get one canonical row per planet.

How many planets are available? 6,298 confirmed planets at the time of the last update, growing as the archive adds new discoveries.

Can I filter by detection method? Yes. Choose from 11 methods including Transit, Radial Velocity, Microlensing and Imaging, or leave it on Any Method.

Can I filter by year? Yes. Set a discovery year to return only the planets confirmed in that calendar year.

Can I get every planet around one star? Yes. Enter the exact host star name, for example TOI-1136, and the actor returns its whole planetary system.

Why are some fields empty? Not every planet has every measurement published. Fields like planet mass or orbital period can be empty when the archive has no value, while well studied systems are complete.

Do I need an API key or account for NASA? No. The archive's TAP service is public and the actor needs no key on the source side.

What units are used? Radius and mass are in Earth units, orbital period is in days, semi major axis is in astronomical units, distance is in parsecs, and stellar temperature is in Kelvin.

How many records can I get? Free plans are limited to 10 records per run. Paid plans can request up to 1,000,000.

How current is the data? Each run queries the live archive, so results reflect the catalogue at the moment you run it.

Is this affiliated with NASA? No. It is an independent tool that reads only publicly available data from the archive.

🔌 Integrate with any app

Every run produces a structured dataset you can pull through the Apify API, connect to webhooks, or wire into your own pipelines and applications.

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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 the NASA Exoplanet Archive. Only publicly available data collected.