NEO & Comet Tracker

A Python-based web application that fetches and visualizes real-time data on Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) and comets using NASA's public APIs. Built to explore planetary defense data and track celestial bodies approaching Earth.

Features

• Fetches live NEO data from NASA's NeoWs (Near Earth Object Web Service) API
• Displays asteroid details: miss distance, velocity, size estimates, and hazard classification
• Comet tracking with orbital data ingestion
• Clean, readable output with data parsed and formatted for easy interpretation
• Lightweight Python backend with minimal dependencies

Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Language	Python 3.x
API	NASA NeoWs API / NASA Open APIs
HTTP Client	requests
Data Handling	json, datetime
UI/Output	streamlit

Installation

Prerequisites

• Python 3.8 or above
• A free NASA API key — get one at https://api.nasa.gov

Steps

# 1. Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/Himan1807/neo-comet-tracker.git
cd neo-comet-tracker

# 2. Install dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt

# 3. Set your NASA API key
# Add your key directly in app.py or set it as an environment variable:
export NASA_API_KEY=your_api_key_here

# 4. Run the app
python app.py

API Configuration

This project uses NASA's Open APIs. To use it:

1. Visit https://api.nasa.gov and register for a free API key.
2. Replace the placeholder in app.py:

   API_KEY = "your_nasa_api_key_here"

   Or set it as an environment variable NASA_API_KEY.

Note: NASA's demo key (DEMO_KEY) works for limited testing but has lower rate limits.

NASA APIs Used

API	Endpoint	Description
NeoWs Feed	/neo/rest/v1/feed	NEOs by date range
NeoWs Lookup	/neo/rest/v1/neo/{asteroid_id}	Details for a specific asteroid

Author

Himanshu B.Tech CSE, Shiv Nadar University (2027) GitHub