☄️ NASA Near-Earth Asteroids (NeoWs) Scraper

🚀 Pull near-earth asteroid data from NASA's NeoWs: name, hazardous flag, diameter, close-approach date, miss-distance, velocity.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-05-07 · 📊 30 fields per record · ~28,000 known NEOs · close-approach feeds + full catalog browse · hazardous flag, diameter, miss-distance, orbital data

The NASA Near-Earth Asteroids Scraper pulls asteroid data from NASA's Near Earth Object Web Service (NeoWs). Output includes asteroid name, designation, potentially-hazardous flag, estimated diameter (min/max in meters and miles), close-approach date, miss-distance (km, lunar, AU), relative velocity, orbiting body, absolute magnitude, and orbital determination data.

NASA tracks ~28,000 known near-earth objects with close approaches updated daily. The Actor offers two modes: a date-range feed (asteroids approaching Earth in a 7-day window) and a full catalog browse mode. Filter to potentially-hazardous asteroids (PHAs) only, or include all NEOs.

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Primary Use Cases
Astronomy enthusiasts, science journalists, planetary defense researchers, ML pipelines, educators, museum exhibits	Astronomy newsletters, science-news features, planetary-defense awareness, classroom material, ML training on orbital mechanics

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📋 What the NASA Near-Earth Asteroids (NeoWs) Scraper does

Five filtering workflows in a single run:

• 📅 Close-approach feed. Asteroids passing Earth in a 7-day window.
• 📚 Catalog browse. Paginate the full NeoWs catalog of 28,000+ NEOs.
• ⚠️ Hazardous filter. Restrict to potentially-hazardous asteroids (PHAs).
• 📐 Multi-unit data. Diameter in meters/km/miles, velocity in km/s and km/h, miss-distance in km/lunar/AU.
• 🔬 Orbital data. Orbit determination, observation count, first/last observation date.

💡 Why it matters: clean, server-side filtering and fresh data on every run.

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🎬 Full Demo

🚧 Coming soon: a 3-minute walkthrough showing how to go from sign-up to a downloaded dataset.

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⚙️ Input

Input	Type	Default	Behavior
maxItems	integer	10	Records to return. Free plan caps at 10, paid plan up to 1,000,000.
mode	string	"feed"	feed (date range) or browse (full catalog).
startDate	string	""	YYYY-MM-DD. Range max 7 days for feed.
endDate	string	""	YYYY-MM-DD. Empty = same as start.
hazardousOnly	boolean	false	Restrict to PHAs.

Example: asteroids passing Earth this week.

{
    "maxItems": 100,
    "mode": "feed",
    "startDate": "2026-05-01",
    "endDate": "2026-05-07"
}

Example: first 100 PHAs in catalog.

{
    "maxItems": 100,
    "mode": "browse",
    "hazardousOnly": true
}

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📊 Output

Each record contains 30 fields. Download as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

🧾 Schema

Field	Type	Example
📛 name	string	"(2003 GR22)"
🆔 designation	string	null
🆔 neoReferenceId	string	"3152318"
⚠️ isPotentiallyHazardous	boolean	false
⚠️ isSentryObject	boolean	false
🔆 absoluteMagnitudeH	number	22.17
📐 diameterMinMeters	number	85.13
📐 diameterMaxMeters	number	190.36
📅 closeApproachDate	string	"2026-04-01"
📅 closeApproachDateFull	string	"2026-Apr-01 12:00"
🚀 relativeVelocityKms	number	12.78
📏 missDistanceKm	number	41200000
📏 missDistanceLunar	number	107.16
🌐 orbitingBody	string	"Earth"
🔗 nasaJplUrl	string	"https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=3152318"

📦 Sample records

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✨ Why choose this Actor

	Capability
🛰️	NASA-authoritative. Direct from NASA's Near Earth Object Web Service.
⚠️	PHA detection. Built-in filter for potentially-hazardous asteroids.
📐	Multi-unit output. Meters/km/miles, km/s and km/h, km/lunar/AU.
🔬	Full orbital data. Orbit determination, observation history.
⚡	Fast. 100 records in under 30 seconds.

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📈 How it compares to alternatives

Approach	Cost	Coverage	Refresh	Filters	Setup
⭐ This Actor	$5 free credit	~28,000 NEOs	Live per run	date range, browse, hazardous filter	⚡ 2 min
Manual NASA browse	Free	Manual	Live	Web filters	🕒 Manual
ESA SSA portal	Free	Different scope	Live	Yes	🐢 Account
Raw NASA dumps	Free	All	Periodic	Bulk only	🐢 ETL

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🚀 How to use

1. 📝 Sign up. Create a free account with $5 credit (takes 2 minutes).
2. 🌐 Open the Actor. Find the NASA Near-Earth Asteroids (NeoWs) Scraper on the Apify Store.
3. 🎯 Set input. Pick filters and maxItems.
4. 🚀 Run it. Click Start.
5. 📥 Download. Grab results in the Dataset tab as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

⏱️ Total time from signup to dataset: 3-5 minutes. No coding required.

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💼 Business use cases

🔭 Astronomy + Science Daily close-approach alerts Newsletter content on asteroids Planetary-defense awareness Citizen-science data feeds	📰 Science Journalism "Asteroid passes today" articles Year-in-review NEO summaries Hazardous-NEO investigations Visualizations and infographics
🎓 Education Classroom astronomy content Museum exhibit data Reproducible astronomy snapshots Course materials with current data	🤖 ML + Research Train orbital-prediction models Build NEO-classification features Power planetary-defense dashboards Cross-train with survey data

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🔌 Automating NASA Near-Earth Asteroids (NeoWs) Scraper

Control the scraper programmatically:

• 🟢 Node.js. Install the apify-client NPM package.
• 🐍 Python. Use the apify-client PyPI package.
• 📚 See the Apify API documentation for full details.

The Apify Schedules feature lets you trigger this Actor on any cron interval.

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🌟 Beyond business use cases

Data like this powers more than commercial workflows.

🎓 Research and academia Astronomy education datasets Reproducible NEO snapshots Course materials Cross-survey orbital studies	🎨 Personal and creative Personal asteroid dashboards Sci-fi worldbuilding research Astronomy hobbyist data Newsletter content
🤝 Non-profit and civic Planetary-defense awareness Astronomy education outreach Open-data contributions Civic science journalism	🧪 Experimentation Train orbital-prediction models Prototype NEO-tracking apps Build asteroid visualizations Test orbital-mechanics libraries

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🤖 Ask an AI assistant about this scraper

Open a ready-to-send prompt in the AI of your choice:

• 💬 ChatGPT
• 🧠 Claude
• 🔍 Perplexity
• 🅒 Copilot

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❓ Frequently Asked Questions

🧩 How does it work?

Pick mode (feed for date range or browse for full catalog). The Actor calls NASA's NeoWs API and emits one record per asteroid.

⚠️ What is a potentially-hazardous asteroid?

An NEO with absolute magnitude H ≤ 22 and minimum orbit intersection distance (MOID) ≤ 0.05 AU. The Actor exposes the NASA-computed flag directly.

📊 How many fields per record?

30, including name, designation, hazardous flag, diameter ranges, close-approach data, velocity, miss-distance, orbital determination, and JPL URL.

📅 What's the maximum feed date range?

NeoWs limits feed queries to 7 days. Use browse mode for catalog-wide pulls.

📐 What does diameter range mean?

NASA estimates minimum and maximum diameter from absolute magnitude and an assumed albedo range.

🔁 Can I schedule runs?

Yes. Schedule daily for fresh close-approach feeds.

⚖️ Is this data free?

Yes. NASA publishes NeoWs under public-domain. The actor can use the DEMO_KEY rate-limited public key by default.

💳 Do I need a paid Apify plan?

No. The free plan covers preview runs.

🆘 What if a run fails?

Apify retries transient errors. NASA's DEMO_KEY rate-limits at 30 req/hr; for high-volume runs, use the NASA_API_KEY env var.

☄️ Are comets included?

No. NeoWs focuses on asteroids. For comets, ESA and JPL Horizons offer alternative endpoints.

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🔌 Integrate with any app

NASA Near-Earth Asteroids (NeoWs) Scraper connects to any cloud service via Apify integrations:

• Make - Automate multi-step workflows
• Zapier - Connect with 5,000+ apps
• Slack - Get run notifications
• Airbyte - Pipe data into your warehouse
• GitHub - Trigger runs from commits
• Google Drive - Export datasets to Sheets

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💡 Pro Tip: browse the complete ParseForge collection for more reference-data scrapers.

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🆘 Need Help? Open our contact form to request a new scraper, propose a custom data project, or report an issue.

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⚠️ Disclaimer: this Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), JPL, or any astronomical observatory. All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. Only publicly available open data is collected.