ExoAPI:
SkyHook Documentation

The new skyhook API (version 2 of the original API) can be reached using http://exoapi.com/api/skyhook/ The old API will remain accessible at the old url.

Get Planets

You can request all of the current ExoPlanetary data using /planets/all. These queries can also be modified by the sort and fields operators.

All Planets skyhook/planets/all

Planets By Id skyhook/planets/[id]

Search Planets

You can search planets using the fieldname=value parameters on /planets/search? These queries can also be modified using the sort and fields operators.

For instance to find all planets discovered in 2012:
skyhook/planets/search?discoveryyear=2012

You can also use :gt, :gte, :lt, :lte to execute range style queries. for example to find all planets discovered before 2007:
skyhook/planets/search?discoveryyear:lt=2007

Sorting Results

Results can be sorted using the sort parameter:
skyhook/planets/all?sort=[field[:asc|:desc]]

For example, to sort all planets by mass, descending:
skyhook/planets/all?sort=[properties.mass:desc]

If no directionality is specified, ascending is used for example you can sort the planets by mass asc simply by using:
skyhook/planets/all?sort=[properties.mass]

You can also use multiple sorting parameters by using comma as a delimiter:
skyhook/planets/all?sort=[discoveryyear:desc,name]

Note: Not all planets have values for all fields. Currently in the API null values are returned as the greatest value. So a desc sort may return some results with null values for that field as the first several entries.

Selecting Specific Fields

If you do not want the full output with all planetary information, you can select specific fields that should be returned by the API, for example, to select only the names of planets use:
skyhook/planets/all?fields=[name]

Note: The _id field is returned in all queries, the above query would return {name, _id} fields for each entry in the API

Fields should be separated by a comma, to select name and mass from planets with mass > 5, ordered by mass use the following search query:
skyhook/planets/search?properties.mass:gte=5&fields=[name,properties.mass]&sort=[properties.mass]

Current Field List:

This is the current list of fields in the database. Note this document may go out of date and more fields may be available (or unavailable if removed). For more information on the format of the underlying data, see here (https://github.com/hannorein/open_exoplanet_catalogue/tree/master/data).

_id
name
name_kepler
name_koi
zone_class
mass_class
composition_class
atmosphere_class
hydrogen-rich
habitable_class
min_mass
mass
radius
density
gravity
esc_vel
sflux_min
sflux_mean
sflux_max
teq_min
teq_mean
teq_max
ts_min
ts_mean
ts_max
surf_press
appar_size
period
sem_major_axis
eccentricity
mean_distance
inclination
omega
hzd
hzc
hza
hzi
sph
surf_esi
esi
habitable
hab_moon
confirmed
disc_method
disc_year
image
imagedescription
multiplicity
disc_method
Star Properties
star.name
star.name_hd
star.name_hip
star.constellation
star.type
star.mass
star.radius
star.teff
star.luminosity
star.metallicity
star.age
star.appar_mag
star.distance
star.ra
star.dec
star.mag_from_planet
star.no_planets
star.no_planets_hz
star.hab_zone_min
star.habcat
star.angulardistance
star.magV
star.magI
star.magH
star.magJ
star.magK

Paging:

You may not always want all planets to be returned in your query. To limit the number of results returned by your queries, use limit=[start,count]. For example to return the first 10 planets ordered by name use:
skyhook/planets/all?sort=[name], limit=10

You can also apply an offset to begin from other points in the data, for example to access the 10 - 20 range, use the following query:
skyhook/planets/all?sort=[name], limit=10, start=10

Example Queries:

To find the names of all planets with a mass less than 5, discovered this year (2012), sorted by mass ascending:
skyhook/planets/search?properties.mass:lt=5&discoveryyear=2012&sort=[properties.mass]&fields=[name]

Response Format:

The API responses are JSON objects with the following format:

{ 
  "response": 
  {
    "results": [ {field:value, field2:value2 … } ], 
    "count": 100 
  }
}

CORS and JSONP:

Although ExoAPI provides access through Cross-Origin Resource Sharing we also allow support for JSONP requests. We reccommend using CORS, which can be used with the following jQuery command:

$.get("http://exoapi.com/api/planets/all", {}, function(data){ alert(data); });

JSONP-Style callbacks can be specified using the jsonp=[callbackName] query parameter. For example: http://exoapi.com/api/planets/all?jsonp=callback. This will return the following result format:

callback(
{ 
  "response": 
  {
    "results": [ {field:value, field2:value2 … } ], 
    "count": 100 
  }
})

About

ExoAPI is an ongoing project that extends the accessibility of exoplanetary data by providing an easy to use RESTful API. ExoAPI was created during the NASA Space Apps Challenge [spaceappschallenge.org] by a team of three amazing geniuses who knew nothing about space before they started this...and still don't really.

Currently the data is provided by http://exoplanetology.blogspot.com/ who in turn feeds the data from http://exoplanet.eu/. The ExoAPI team plans on extending the API to encompass a wider array of data sources and more interesting space data to reach as many programmers as possible and encourage an explosion of space data based mashups.

The new SKYHOOK API integrates another data source (http://nanobio.hpcf.upr.edu/~amendez/phl/phl_hec_all_confirmed.csv) to provide a much wider range of available fields, see the docs for more info.

Check out the original data.

Email us and send us your mash-ups and projects! We'd love to see how you're using the ExoAPI.

Who Made this?

Ken "likes turtles"

 

Rob is an interactive developer/designer and is entirely too humble.

 

Marissa is a front-end developer who makes stuff for the interwebs.