☄️ NASA Near-Earth Asteroid Risk Ranker

🚀 Rank near-Earth asteroids by size, speed, and proximity for any date range. A composite risk score across every object in the window - not a single-asteroid lookup.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-07-11 · 📊 10 fields per asteroid · Built on NASA's official public NeoWs API (DEMO_KEY works, no signup)

🎁 Try it free: the free Apify plan returns up to 10 results per run - enough to see the output quality. Any paid Apify plan unlocks full-size runs.

Give it a date range and it pulls every near-Earth asteroid NASA is tracking in that window, then scores and ranks them by a combined size/speed/proximity formula - so you instantly see which object is the biggest concern, instead of scrolling NASA's raw JSON feed object by object.

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Primary Use Cases
Science journalists, space/astronomy content creators, educators, researchers	News monitoring, content research, classroom material, casual risk awareness

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📋 What this Actor does

• Fetches every near-Earth object NASA's feed reports for your date range (auto-splits into 7-day windows if needed)
• Computes a composite risk score from estimated diameter, relative velocity, and miss distance
• Ranks all asteroids in each window from highest to lowest risk score
• Flags NASA's own "potentially hazardous asteroid" designation alongside the score

💡 Why it matters: NASA's raw feed lists asteroids in whatever order the API returns them - this ranks them by what actually matters (how big, how fast, how close).

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🎬 Full demo

🚧 Video walkthrough coming soon - the Quick Start below takes under 3 minutes end to end.

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⚙️ Input

Input	Type	Default	Behavior
startDate	string	(prefilled)	First date to check (YYYY-MM-DD)
endDate	string	(prefilled)	Last date to check (YYYY-MM-DD); ranges over 7 days auto-split into windows (max 42 days total)
apiKey	string (secret)	DEMO_KEY	Optional - your own free api.nasa.gov key for higher rate limits

Example: One week ahead

{ "startDate": "2026-07-11", "endDate": "2026-07-18" }

Example: Full month scan

{ "startDate": "2026-08-01", "endDate": "2026-08-31" }

⚠️ Good to know: DEMO_KEY is limited to 30 requests/hour and 50/day across ALL DEMO_KEY users - get your own free key at api.nasa.gov if you plan to run this often.

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📊 Output

Each asteroid returns 10 fields. Download as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML, or consume via the Apify API.

🧾 Schema

Field	Type	Example
riskRank	integer	1
name	string	(2010 WB3)
closeApproachDate	string	2026-07-15
estDiameterMetersAvg	number	440.09
velocityKmPerSec	number	27.49
missDistanceKm / missDistanceLunar	number / number	17725394.95 / 46.09
isPotentiallyHazardous	boolean	false
riskScore	number	262.52
windowStart / windowEnd	string / string	2026-07-11 / 2026-07-17

📦 Sample record

{"name":"(2010 WB3)","closeApproachDate":"2026-07-15","estDiameterMetersAvg":440.09,"velocityKmPerSec":27.49,"missDistanceKm":17725394.95,"missDistanceLunar":46.09,"isPotentiallyHazardous":false,"riskScore":262.52,"windowStart":"2026-07-11","windowEnd":"2026-07-17","riskRank":1}

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✨ Why choose this Actor

	Capability
🏆	Ranked, not raw. Every asteroid in your window scored and sorted, not a flat list.
⚡	Built on NASA's official API. DEMO_KEY works immediately, no signup required.
📅	Any date range. Auto-splits long ranges into NASA's required 7-day windows.
🔁	Automatic retries. Transient failures retry with backoff.
💳	Pay per result. No subscription. A typical week's scan costs under $0.15.

📊 Turns NASA's raw JSON feed into 1 ranked risk table.

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📈 How it compares to alternatives

Approach	Cost	Coverage	Refresh	Setup
⭐ NASA Near-Earth Asteroid Risk Ranker (this Actor)	$5 free credit, then pay-per-use	Any date range, auto-windowed	Live per run	⚡ 2 min
NASA's raw NeoWs API directly	Free (DEMO_KEY rate-limited)	Manual JSON parsing required	Live	🐢 Requires coding
eyes.nasa.gov browsing manually	Free	One object at a time	Live	🐢 No ranking, no export
Manual copy-paste	Free	Current session only	One-shot	🐢 Hours of clicking

Pick this Actor when you want a ranked, exportable risk table without writing your own NASA API integration.

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🚀 How to use

1. 📝 Sign up. Create a free Apify account with $5 credit (takes 2 minutes).
2. 🌐 Open the Actor. Go to the NASA Near-Earth Asteroid Risk Ranker page on the Apify Store.
3. ✏️ Set your input. Pick your date range - or just press Start, the prefilled example works.
4. 🚀 Run it. Watch results stream into the Dataset tab.
5. 📥 Download. Grab results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML - or pipe them anywhere via the Apify API.

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

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💼 Business use cases

• Science journalists: back an "asteroid passing Earth" story with a real risk score, not just NASA's raw list.
• Content creators: find the week's most notable close approach for video/newsletter content.
• Educators: classroom material with real, ranked near-Earth object data.
• Researchers: quick composite screening before deeper orbital-mechanics analysis.

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🌟 Beyond business use cases

• 🎓 Research & academia - planetary defense and NEO population studies.
• 🎨 Personal & creative - space newsletter or YouTube content research.
• 🤝 Non-profit & civic - public science-literacy and space-awareness outreach.
• 🧪 Experimentation - prototype a space-risk dashboard on real data.

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🔌 Automating NASA Near-Earth Asteroid Risk Ranker

Node.js (apify-client on NPM):

const { ApifyClient } = require('apify-client');
const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' });
const run = await client.actor('saint_person/nasa-neo-asteroid-tracker').call({ startDate: "2026-07-11", endDate: "2026-07-18" });
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();

Python (apify-client on PyPI):

from apify_client import ApifyClient
client = ApifyClient('YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN')
run = client.actor('saint_person/nasa-neo-asteroid-tracker').call(run_input={"startDate": "2026-07-11", "endDate": "2026-07-18"})
items = client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId']).list_items().items

📚 Full Apify API documentation

Apify Schedules triggers this Actor on any cron interval - weekly for a standing close-approach watch.

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🧠 Use via MCP (for AI agents)

NASA Near-Earth Asteroid Risk Ranker is directly callable by any MCP-compatible AI agent (Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, and others) through Apify's hosted MCP server - no custom integration code needed.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/sse?actors=saint_person/nasa-neo-asteroid-tracker",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" }
    }
  }
}

Once connected, just ask your agent something like: "Use the NASA Near-Earth Asteroid Risk Ranker Actor to tell me the riskiest asteroid passing Earth this week."

📚 Apify MCP server docs

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🤖 Ask an AI assistant about this Actor

• 💬 ChatGPT
• 🧠 Claude
• 🔍 Perplexity

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❓ Frequently Asked Questions

🧩 How does it work?

It calls NASA's official NeoWs feed endpoint per 7-day window, then computes a risk score (size × velocity ÷ proximity) for every asteroid returned and ranks them.

What does "riskScore" mean - is this an official NASA metric?

No - it's this Actor's own composite formula (diameter × velocity ÷ miss distance in lunar units) for relative ranking within a run. NASA's own hazard flag (isPotentiallyHazardous) is also included separately.

Do I need my own NASA API key?

No - DEMO_KEY works immediately with no signup, just rate-limited (30/hour, 50/day, shared across all DEMO_KEY users). Get a free personal key at api.nasa.gov for heavier use.

⏰ Can I schedule regular runs?

Yes. Use Apify Schedules to run this Actor on any cron interval.

⚖️ Is this data legal to collect?

This Actor only collects data that is publicly accessible via NASA's free, open API. No login, no bypass of access controls.

💳 Do I need a paid Apify plan?

No. The free Apify plan is enough for testing and small runs.

🔁 What happens if a run fails?

Transient errors retry automatically with backoff. If a run still fails, the log explains exactly why.

🆘 What if I need help?

Open an issue on this Actor's Issues tab.

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🔌 Integrate with any app

• Zapier
• Make
• n8n
• Google Sheets
• Slack
• Gmail
• Webhooks
• MCP

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🔗 Recommended Actors

Pairs well with USGS Seismic Risk Profiler for cross-domain natural-hazard awareness tooling.

💡 Pro tip: browse the complete saint_person collection for more tools like this.

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🆘 Help & custom requests

• 🐛 Something not working? Open an issue on this Actor's Issues tab.
• 🛠️ Need a custom feature or a different data source? Open an issue describing what you need.

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⚠️ Disclaimer: this Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by NASA. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Only publicly available data is collected. Risk scores are this Actor's own composite metric, not an official NASA hazard assessment.