asteroidhack

FOR COMPLETE INFO SEE: http://echouser.com/blog/asteroid_hackathon-2

astrohack twitter.com/echouser

DATA SOURCES:

http://astrorank.com/mpc

3) More Data! The SETI Institute has provided some supplemental data to play with. (We really like these guys!) The Minor Planet Center data is still the primary dataset, but more the merrier.

DAMIT 3D models. DAMIT is a database of hundreds of asteroid models, and also some other information about the asteroids. When browsing for asteroids, you’re going to want to download the OBJ files, since those are readily importable. The PNG links provide a visual overview. A description of the other sorts of information to be found at the site. http://astro.troja.mff.cuni.cz/projects/asteroids3D/web.php?page=db_browse.

RADAR 3D models are a small collection of asteroid models, generated by a different technique. The actual model files are in OBJ format and can be found by going through “Browse” and then “data” links on the site. http://sbn.psi.edu/pds/resource/rshape.html

VOBAD is a downloadable database of multiple asteroid systems. http://www.franckmarchis.com/DATA/PHP_scripts/VOBAD/BinaryDB_php.zip

If you have any questions, please email us: [email protected].

MAIN: http://minorplanetcenter.net/mpc-fetch.py

mpc-fetch.py -- fetches properties of all objects that match search params.

Sample call to retrieve all Near-Earth-Objects with inclination <= 2 degrees

and spin period >= 5 hours:

python mpc-fetch.py neo 1 inclination_max 2.0 spin_period_min 5.0 > data.xml

For the list of possible search parameters, browse to:

http://minorplanetcenter.net/web_service.html

To get results in JSON format instead of xml, add 'json 1' to parameters.

N.B. This script requires the 'requests' python module:

$ pip install requests

If you need pip, see: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pip

import sys, requests

url = 'http://mpcdb1.cfa.harvard.edu/ws/search'

params = {} for i in range(1, len(sys.argv)): if (i % 2 == 1): params[sys.argv[i]] = sys.argv[i+1]

r = requests.post(url, params, auth = ('mpc_ws', 'mpc!!ws'))

print r.text