Near Earth Object Database

The Near Earth Object database is a searchable Python 3 command-line interface (CLI) project.

Install

A Python 3.6+ project, no external dependencies are required as all libraries used are a part of the Python standard library.

If you have multiple versions of Python installed on your machine, please be mindful to set up a virtual environment with Python 3.6+.

To Setup a Python 3 Virtual Environment

python3 -m venv /path/to/new/virtual/environment

Usage

To use the project:

1. Clone the project to your local machine
2. Create a virtual environment, named env, with python3 -m env /env in project root
3. Activate the virtual environment with source env/bin/activate
4. Navigate to the /starter directory
5. Run python main.py -h or ./main.py -h for an explanation of how to run the project
6. Or try it out yourself!

Example of how to use the interface:

1. Find up to 10 NEOs on Jan 1, 2020 displaying output to terminal

./main.py display -n 10 --date 2020-01-01

2. Find up to 10 NEOs from input file 'new_neo_data.csv' between Jan 1, 2020 and Jan 10, 2020 within 5 km from Earth, exporting to a csv file

./main.py csvfile -n 10 -f new_neo_data.csv --start_date 2020-01-01 --end_date 2020-01-10 --filter distance:>=:5

Near Earth Object Data

Each row in the neo_data.csv represents a single orbit path for a Near Earth Object on a given date.

Each row includes the following attributes:

- id: unique id of the NEO 
- neo_reference_id: NEO reference id 
- name: NEO name 
- nasa_jpl_url: url with NASA info on the NEO 
- absolute_magnitude_h: height of NEO 
- estimated_diameter_min_kilometers: diameter in km min 
- estimated_diameter_max_kilometers: diameter in km max 
- estimated_diameter_min_meters: diameter in m min  
- estimated_diameter_max_meters: diameter in m max  
- estimated_diameter_min_miles: diameter in mi min  
- estimated_diameter_max_miles: diameter in mi max  
- estimated_diameter_min_feet: diameter in ft min  
- estimated_diameter_max_feet: diameter in ft max  
- is_potentially_hazardous_asteroid: true/false if hazaradous  
- kilometers_per_second: km pr s 
- kilometers_per_hour: km per hr 
- miles_per_hour: mi per hr 
- close_approach_date: str of NEO orbit close approach date 
- close_approach_date_full: : str of NEO orbit close approach date 
- miss_distance_astronomical: : how far NEO miss in astronomical units 
- miss_distance_lunar: how far NEO miss in lunar units  
- miss_distance_kilometers: how far NEO miss in km 
- miss_distance_miles: how far NEO miss in mi 
- orbiting_body: body orbiting around 

Project Organization

The project is broken into the following files:

• main.py: Python main script to run the project.
• database.py: Python module with database logic (e.g. reading the data, storing the data)
• exceptions.py: Python module with any custom exceptions logic
• models.py Python module with models -- objects representing NearEarthObject and OrbitPath
• search.py: Python module with search logic (e.g. the different date searchers)
• writer.py: Python module with write logic (e.g. write to file, print to terminal)

The project additionally has prewritten tests that can be used to validate the output as per corresponding inputs (defined below):

• tests/test_neo_database.py: Python unittest module with 8 tests, each requirement has 2 tests.