Public Universe
About this site
Public Universe is a free astronomy reference for everyone, from children exploring their first planets to scientists working with catalogue data. Discover planets, moons, asteroids and comets in our solar system, exoplanets around other stars, and interactive views of known planetary systems in the galaxy. Browsing and learning need no account.
This is an astronomy reference: physical worlds, measured properties and scientific discoveries. The galaxy explorer plots known exoplanet hosts against a schematic galactic disk; it is not a complete map of the stars.
Built with Grok Bot (xAI) and Cursor, a Wicked Sick pro bono project.
Where the data comes from
The catalogue brings together data from NASA and JPL, the NASA Exoplanet Archive, the IAU Minor Planet Center and other astronomical organisations. Source coverage and refresh times vary. Follow the source references and check the original data, attribution requirements and reuse terms when using a measurement in your own work. The code licence does not replace the terms of individual datasets.
- JPL SBDB (lookup) 1,896,352 records
- JPL SBDB 1,577,979 records
- JPL Solar System Dynamics — planetary satellites 505 records
- JPL CAD 305 records
- NASA Planetary Fact Sheet 120 records
- NASA Planetary Fact Sheet / JPL keplerian elements 43 records
- IAU Meteor Data Center (Jenniskens et al. 2020; Hajdukova & Rudawska) 1 records
- IAU Minor Planet Center 1 records
- NASA Exoplanet Archive / PSCompPars (doi:10.26133/NEA13) 1 records
Use the API yourself
This whole site is just a front end over a free, read-only REST API. You can query the same data directly — see the developer page for a worked example, or browse the interactive API documentation.
Download the whole database
The published catalogue is available as a compressed SQLite database for offline exploration and research. The latest manifest records the available build and its checksum; check its timestamp, accompanying licence and source metadata before use. A nightly publishing schedule does not mean every upstream measurement was updated that day. Get the latest manifest.
Catalogue versions and checksums
The API reports this catalogue identity. Website caches check for changes about once a minute. This separate identity check does not pin another page response.
- API logical catalogue ID
- sha256:532283ee3003ffcf400a4f576c7f0a2ec599d439d1226f654dfa7d1acbe5108d
- API build ID
- sha256:c54c142a2a9859e1b2dbc9a18a3c7ef84963e008bd61804fb40c39a8eed35bc6
- Recorded build finish (UTC offset included)
- 2026-10-15T04:28:51Z
API-reported downloadable file: solar_system-20261015.sqlite.zst
- Compressed file SHA-256
- ba3bb0f5f30e0a818351e9d0c82b0e03c162676dae1250d01c8ee3a34bc57e64
- Uncompressed SQLite SHA-256
- fd31f4666706ac23a3cde470f67bcf95b8e7223a5eaa93c0071943cd1ed0909c
- Download logical catalogue ID
- sha256:532283ee3003ffcf400a4f576c7f0a2ec599d439d1226f654dfa7d1acbe5108d
- Download build ID
- sha256:c54c142a2a9859e1b2dbc9a18a3c7ef84963e008bd61804fb40c39a8eed35bc6
The latest observed API and download metadata report the same build ID. Recheck the manifest when downloading; it can change independently.
Logical data IDs, build IDs and file checksums serve different purposes. Keep the downloaded file and its manifest together, including source metadata and licences. Check the actual manifest you download against these values: configured download links can differ from the API-reported source. IDs do not guarantee that historical files remain hosted, and absent upstream source versions remain unknown.
Credits & source code
The catalogue and API are open source. Browse the backend repository on GitHub.
Follow Public Universe
News, sky highlights and new features from our official accounts.
Spotted an error?
Astronomical data is always being refined. If something looks wrong, please let us know: [email protected].