Presentation
The SsODNet service aims to build the core of a VO-compliant information system dedicated to the
solar and extrasolar system objects. It is developped and maintained by the VO team of IMCCE
(J. Berthier, J. Normand and F. Vachier) in collaboration with B. Carry and M. Mahlke of the
Lagrange laboratory of the
Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur (OCA).
The core of SsODNet is a name resolver. SsODNet.quaero
allows to identify solar and extrasolar system objects from their official name, or number,
or provisional designation, or any of the multiple names that an object can have over time.
It allows to explore the naming of bodies using wildcard, regular expression, or fuzziness.
The name of an object can also be resolved into its celestial coordinates at a given epoch, when the
knowledge of its dynamical properties is sufficient.
SsODNet is also a data aggregator, thought to allow planetary scientists to gather
dynamical and physical parameters of Solar System objects. Collections of dynamical and physical
parameters are available through SsODNet.datacloud,
the best estimates of these parameters for a given object are available through
SsODNet.ssoCard,
and all data at once through the SsODNet.ssoBFT.
Solar system bodies
The knowledge database of SsODNet contains an exhaustive list of designations of Solar System Objects (SSOs):
planets, natural satellites, asteroids, comets, spacecrafts, and spacejunks orbiting the Earth, together with
extrasolar planets.
Two groups, under the auspices of the IAU Division F
are in charge to name objects and features in
the Solar System. One is the Working Group for Planetary
System Nomenclature (WGPSN) and the other is the Committee
for Small Body Nomenclature (CSBN). The WGPSN names features on planets, satellites, and asteroids,
as well as planets (though so far the IAU has never named a planet) and natural satellites of major
planets. The CSBN names all other small bodies (minor planets, satellites of minor planets, comets).
As of today, there is no official names
for exoplanets assigned by the IAU. The public names, assigned through a public naming process such as
NameExoWorlds, is distinguished from the official
scientific designation, which follows the rules of the system used for designating multiple-star systems
as adopted by the IAU.
Spacecraft are usually named by their funders (space agencies, laboratories, or companies). They are
also assigned an International Designator (COSPAR ID), under the responsibility of the
Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) of the
International Council for Science (ICSU), and a Satellite Catalog
Number (NORAD ID) attributed by the United States Space Command
(USSPACECOM). Spacecraft together with launchers, payloads, and space debris are indexed for
safety and cooperation purposes.
SsODNet names and aliases are gathered from the following sources:
API
The best client to explore SsODNet data is the Python package rocks.
From the command line or via a notebook, for normal users or developers, it allows to
identify SSOs, but also to retrieve and explore asteroid, aka space-rocks,
data from SsODNet.
SsODNet can also be used via its Web service API, which offer the following methods (HTTP + XML + SOAP + WSDL):
Sso name resolver
- quaero
- low level API to identify and explore (extra)solar system object names, and to resolve
them into celestial coordinates (for developers)
- resolver
- high level API based on
quaero service (for normal user)
Sso datasets
- datacloud
- to explore all the properties of asteroids and dwarf planets from the collected datasets
- ssocard
- to get the best estimates of dynamical and physical properties of a target
- ssobft
- to get in a single file all the best estimates of dynamical and physical properties of all SSOs
Administrative method
- getAvailability
- to get the availability of the SsODNet Web service.
Check now!
Practical use
The SsODNet service is a SaaS which allows to access methods to gather identity and data of (extra)solar
system objects through a REST API and SOAP requests, or by using Virtual Observatory applications. The
underlying technology (REST and XML+SOAP+WSDL) being inherently interoperable, you can use them and
implement them regardless of what your favourite platform and operating system are. For that, you
can freely download toolkits to help you to make the integration of the SsODNet
service seamless with your code.
If your favorite programming langage is Python, you may use the rocks
API to call SsODNet methods. See the tutorials
to learn how to do.
Scientific issues
Faced with a huge amount of data, astronomers must search in many different sources of data
to gather information on their Solar System Objects of interest.
Moreover, data formats differ from one source to
another. SsODNet aims to address this issue by proposing a unique end-point to collect dynamical and
physical properties of bodies (datacloud), as well as the best estimates of these
parameters based on scientific choices (ssoCard).
All details are published in Berthier et al., 2023.
The full list of bibliographic references used to build the datacloud can be downloaded as
a PDF document, or in
bibTeX format.
Technical issues
The global architecture of SsODNet is composed of three layers:
a user interface, a data access layer, and a data cloud.
The user interface acts as a client of the service. It gathers the parameters, composes the user's request,
and posts the request to the end points of SsODNet. A simple way to do this is to use a data transfert
program, such as curl or wget,
and to send HTTP requests to the Web API (recommended to normal users), or directly to the Web service
or the REST APIs (recommended to developers). A personal Web interface can easily be developed to handle
the requests and display the results. Feel free to make your own.
SsODNet data can be retrieved and explored in several ways:
- a Python API, rocks, allows full interaction
with SsODNet,
- a low level REST API, quaero, provides an easy and fast method to resolve and
to explore the naming of (extra)solar system objects (public interface)
- a high level Web service API, built upon a XML+SOAP technology (public interface,
SsODNet server), allows to resolve SSO names (resolver) and
to retrieve all the dynamical and physical properties of one or more SSO (datacloud),
- a REST API to retrieve the best estimates of the dynamical and physical properties of a given SSO
(ssocard),
- a broad and flat table (ssoBFT) that compiles all the properties for all SSOs.
The datacloud refers to all the data which are collected and stored in the SsODNet databases, powered by
Elasticsearch and MariaDB database engines.
The ssoCard refers to the set of best estimates of the properties of a SSO grouped in a JSON
document (metadata mapping).
The celestial coordinates provided by the name resolver are computed by the Miriade
Web service. The coordinates of the extrasolar planets are obtained through the PADC
TAP service of the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia. Their ephemerides are computed by
Miriade, and are based on the celestial coordinates (proper motion, parallaxe, ...)
of the parent stars collected via the API of the SIMBAD astronomical
database.
User support
Each response sent back by the SsODNet service contains a ticket number.
This 18 digits number (e.g. 176579530759880420) identifies each
request and may be help us to retrieve information on its processing.
If you face errors by using the SsODNet service (it could occur that no
relevant error message is returned), please report us the ticket number
corresponding to the problem. It will help us to understand and solve it,
and you will help us to improve the service.
The information regarding requests sent to SsODNet is stored in a
dedicated database. No personal information is stored, except the anonymized
IP address provided by the client, which is only employed to make
statistics on the geographical localization of the SsODNet users. The
SsODNet logs are never disseminated nor sent on request.
If you are confronted with a bug, or if you would like to request improvements or special needs, please use the
IMCCE Mantis Bug Tracker (Quick access: use the Report issue
button in the portal menubar).
How to cite SsODNet
If SsODNet was helpful for your research work, the following acknowledgment would be appreciated:
This research has made use of IMCCE's SsODNet VO service (https://ssp.imcce.fr/webservices/ssodnet/)
You can also cite the article presenting SsODNet:
@ARTICLE{2023A&A...671A.151B,
author = {{Berthier}, J. and {Carry}, B. and {Mahlke}, M. and {Normand}, J.},
title = "{SsODNet: Solar system Open Database Network}",
journal = {\aap},
keywords = {astronomical databases: miscellaneous, catalogs, minor planets, asteroids: general, Astrophysics - Earth and Planetary Astrophysics, Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics},
year = 2023,
month = mar,
volume = {671},
eid = {A151},
pages = {A151},
doi = {10.1051/0004-6361/202244878},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
eprint = {2209.10697},
primaryClass = {astro-ph.EP},
adsurl = {https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2023A&A...671A.151B},
adsnote = {Provided by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System}
}