shipapis
StarSubmit an APISubmit API

Minor Planet Center

Query asteroids by orbit, size and value via Asterank

🔭 Science & SpaceHEALTHYchecked 7h ago
AUTH NONECORS ✓AGENT ✓HTTPS ✗COMMERCIAL ?

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.

96HOW IT'S SCORED ⓘ
Docs ↗
Status badge · for your READMEshipapis health badge: 96 · healthy
Uptime history
93.8%90 days
82.8%30 days
131P50 · ms
789P95 · ms
operationalpartialdownno data
Response time · last 48 checks
Fastest 38 ms, slowest 297 ms, most recent 120 ms.
Live response samplecaptured by our last successful check
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"
  }
]
Call itcurl · fetch · python
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

Endpoints · 6HealthyFULL DOCS ↗
Monitored path responding — GET /api/asterank?query=%7B%7D&limit=1131 mschecked 7h ago
GET/api/asterank?query=%7B%7D&limit=1PROBED

Query asteroids by orbit, size and value via Asterank

GET/api

Api — documented GET route.

GET/api/1

Api details by ID (example: 1).

GET/api?limit=10

Api — documented GET route.

GET/api/search?q=test

Search by query parameters.

GET/api/asterank?limit=5

Asterank — documented GET route.

Machine-readable spec

We probe a documented GET and expect 2xx JSON — full uptime and health score. Export includes every documented route below.

Response-shape history

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 93.8% uptime over 90 days and a 131 ms median response. We re-probe it every sweep — the status badge and uptime chart above always show the latest.