LabCourse: Solar System Simulation - Data Generation

This repository contains a Python3 script to generate simulation data for the lab course Solar System Simulation according to https://github.com/SCTeaching-NBody/LabCourse_Slides usable with https://github.com/SCTeaching-NBody/LabCourse_Implementation.

Dependencies

Required Python3 packages:

• tabulate
• astroquery
• requests
• argparse

They can be installed using:

pip3 install -r requirements.txt

Usage

The script can be used to generate 4 different scenarios:

• planets_and_moons: all planets, dwarf planets, and named moons for which we could found mass specifications (177 bodies as of 2024-01-24).
• scenario1: all planets, dwarf planets, and named moons as well as all asteroids with a defined diameter and albedo, where the Main-belt Asteroids are additional constrained to have a diameter of at least 10km (19048 bodies as of 2024-01-24).
• scenario2: all planets, dwarf planets, and named moons as well as all as many asteroids such that the number of bodies is LIMIT - 1 (minus one to account for the Sun that isn't added by this script).
• full: all planets, dwarf planets, named moons, and asteroids queryable through NASA's databases (1345036 bodies as of 2024-01-24).

python3 query_data.py --help
usage: query_data [-h] -o OUTPUT [-s {planets_and_moons,scenario1,scenario2,full}] [-l LIMIT]

Query asteroid data from NASA's Small Body Database.

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -o OUTPUT, --output OUTPUT
                        the output filename containing the Keplerian Orbital Elements in CSV format
  -s {planets_and_moons,scenario1,scenario2,full}, --scenario {planets_and_moons,scenario1,scenario2,full}
                        the scenario used to create the output file
  -l LIMIT, --limit LIMIT
                        the upper limit of number of bodies for scenario2

The resulting csv file contains 14 columns:

e,a,i,om,w,ma,epoch,H,albedo,diameter,class,name,mass,central_body

• the six Keplerian orbital elements (required): the eccentricity e, the semi-major axis a (in AU), the inclination i (in rad), the longitude of the ascending node om (in rad), the argument of periapsis w (in rad), and the mean anomaly ma (in rad)
• the epoch (in JD) for which the Keplerian orbital elements are valid (required)
• physical quantities that can be used to approximate the body's mass (required, but may be 0.0!): the absolute magnitude H, the geometric albedo, and the diameter (in km)
• the mass (in kg) of the body (optional; if not given, approximated)
• the orbital class of the body (required; note that four custom (unofficial) classes where added for a better visualization)
• the IAU name of the body (required; may be empty)
• the central_body that the body orbits (optional; if not given, assumed to be the Sun/Sol)

Note: this script never adds the Sun/Sol to the data set since it isn't possible to represent its position using Keplerian orbital elements.