Minor Planet Center
Query asteroids by orbit, size and value via Asterank
Asterank wraps Minor Planet Center and JPL orbital data behind a keyless query API. Send a MongoDB-style filter and get back asteroids with diameter, orbital elements, albedo and Asterank's estimated mining value as JSON.
GET http://www.asterank.com/api/asterank?query=%7B%7D&limit=1
[
{
"full_name": "1 Ceres",
"diameter": 939.4,
"albedo": 0.09,
"neo": "N",
"pha": "N",
"per_y": 4.6082017811786,
"spkid": 2000001,
"id": "a0000001"
}
]curl "http://www.asterank.com/api/asterank?query=%7B%7D&limit=1"const res = await fetch("http://www.asterank.com/api/asterank?query=%7B%7D&limit=1");
const data = await res.json();
console.log(data);import requests
res = requests.get("http://www.asterank.com/api/asterank?query=%7B%7D&limit=1")
print(res.json())BROWSER CALLS BLOCKED (NO CORS/HTTPS) — USE THE CURL SNIPPET
/api/asterank?query=%7B%7D&limit=1PROBEDQuery asteroids by orbit, size and value via Asterank
/apiApi — documented GET route.
/api/1Api details by ID (example: 1).
/api?limit=10Api — documented GET route.
/api/search?q=testSearch by query parameters.
/api/asterank?limit=5Asterank — documented GET route.
We probe a documented GET and expect 2xx JSON — full uptime and health score. Export includes every documented route below.
Stable. No schema drift observed since monitoring began — the response shape has not changed under our checks.
Minor Planet Center: common questions
Is Minor Planet Center free to use?
Yes — Minor Planet Center is a free science & space API. Free tier: Free — limits not published. Whether the free tier allows commercial use is unclear — check the provider docs.
Does Minor Planet Center need an API key?
No — Minor Planet Center needs no API key or signup. You can call it straight away; rate limits still apply (Unpublished).
Can I call Minor Planet Center from the browser?
Not directly — Minor Planet Center doesn't send browser-friendly CORS headers, so call it from a server or proxy instead. Copy the curl or Python snippet on this page to get started.
Is Minor Planet Center up right now?
As of our last scheduled check, Minor Planet Center is healthy with 99.02% uptime over 90 days and a 217 ms median response. We re-probe it every sweep — the status badge and uptime chart above always show the latest.