Show HN: precision asteroid orbital dynamics library
13 days ago
- #astronomy
- #python
- #orbital-dynamics
- Kete tools simulate all-sky surveys of minor planets, including orbital dynamics, thermal/optical modeling, and field of view corrections.
- Used with the Minor Planet Center (MPC) database, Kete predicts visible objects for past or planned surveys.
- Primary goal: Operate on the entire MPC catalog at once, enabling large-scale simulations (e.g., 10M asteroids for NEO Surveyor).
- Example simulation: ZTF 2023 survey, showing asteroid positions and magnitudes, computed in ~50 minutes.
- Kete can identify known asteroids in a given image and calculate close approaches (e.g., Apophis in 2029).
- Install via pip (`pip install kete`). Example code provided for calculating Apophis's closest approach to Earth.
- Uses ICRF Reference frame (AU, JD with TDB), converting to JPL Horizons-compatible Ecliptic coordinates.
- Cache directory for downloaded files can be set via `KETE_CACHE_DIR` (default: `~/.kete/`).
- Developer info: Requires Rust, Python 3.9+, and updated pip. Docs built with Sphinx; tests run via pytest.
- Benchmarks and flamegraphs available for Rust backend performance analysis.