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Dev tools · March 23, 2013

AJ

A JSON API for NASA HORIZONS Planetary Ephemeris Tables

I don't always all-caps, but when I do, it's because every word is an acronym. The NASA HORIZONS[1] system is a telnet service that provides planetary data and ephemeris tables, which are basically coordinate-time plots for celestial bodies. It's pretty archaic and somewhat difficult to use, especially since it just dumps out text tables and you have to parse it to do anything with it. Some projects, e.g. KDE Marble, use it as a data source and typically just consume it with a little procedural code to get what they need. I wanted to provide a full-fledged library for it so that you can…

A JSON API for NASA HORIZONS Planetary Ephemeris Tables launched on March 23, 2013 with 5 votes, #187 of 671 launches that month and more than 50% of that year's launches. The site was not reachable when checked in September 2026.

Visit horizons.herokuapp.com ↗Alternatives

What it does

In the maker’s words, at launch

I don't always all-caps, but when I do, it's because every word is an acronym. The NASA HORIZONS[1] system is a telnet service that provides planetary data and ephemeris tables, which are basically coordinate-time plots for celestial bodies. It's pretty archaic and somewhat difficult to use, especially since it just…

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Source: Show HN post ↗ · launch text quoted in part

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