Files
star-map/tools/etl/fetchSolarSystem.ts
T
SenrokaiandClaude Opus 5.5 a281f22f34 Measure every moon and dwarf planet against Horizons from 1950 to 2100, and say on its card how far it strays
The clock reaches AD 1 to AD 3000, but only the planets' cards named a span their elements hold
over; the 25 moons and the four SBDB dwarf planets gave a source and an epoch, though
BodyRecord.orbitSource is documented as "the span they hold over". And the worst offsets the ETL
stated came from twelve New Year's Days: Nereid's year is 360 days, so all twelve fell far from
its periapsis, where a mean ellipse is furthest out. The one date the ETL checked, 2025-01-01, saw
Nereid at 2.6 degrees; it reaches 11.19.

For each moon and each SBDB dwarf planet the ETL now fetches Horizons' ICRF vectors from 1950 to
2100, every other day (daily for Nereid, at an eccentricity of 0.75, and Hyperion, whose row's
eccentricity is a quarter of its real one: every other day gave it 22.14, daily 22.23), and
measures how far the mean elements stray, at the same TDB dates. The card appends it: "JPL SBDB
osculating elements, epoch 2026 Jun 9, within 7.2 degrees of Horizons from 1950 to 2100". Worst
offsets on the real catalogue: the Moon 2.62 (2010 March 27), Phoebe 2.58 (1969, where a comment
claimed "within 2.0"), Phobos 1.26, Mimas 7.43, Iapetus 10.34, Nereid 11.19 (2039 Nov 1),
Hyperion 22.23 (2055 Feb 26), Ceres 7.12 (1953); Io 0.07, Titan 0.06, Eris 0.06.

build.ts recomputes each from the same Horizons positions and fails if an orbit other than
Standish's names no span, if a card states less than it strays, or if a body passes its ceiling:
3 degrees, and Hyperion 23, Nereid 12, Iapetus 11, Mimas 8 and Ceres 8, each explained. The
2025-01-01 check stays for reading errors, its comment no longer passing one date's offsets off as
worst ones. The Sun's note says the moons' and those four's elements were checked from 1950 to
2100, and the date field's description that each card says how far its orbit strays over that span.
In the running app Ceres's, Phobos's and Nereid's cards end "within 7.2", "1.3" and "11.2 degrees
of Horizons from 1950 to 2100".

The CLOCK_WINDOW comment also had the calendars the wrong way at AD 1: proleptic Gregorian dates
are two days behind the Julian calendar there, level from AD 200 to 300, and ten days ahead by
1582. It now says so, and names Ceres's drift where it named Phobos's, which its orbit now carries.

Controls: the ETL measuring nothing fails ("Ceres's orbit ... names no span it holds over"),
rounding the stated figure down fails on Ceres (7.1 against 7.12), and Nereid held to the general
ceiling fails at 11.19; the note and the date field without the span fail their named tests.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-29 19:57:16 +02:00

294 lines
19 KiB
TypeScript

import { writeFileSync } from 'node:fs';
import { BodyRecord, OrbitalElements } from '../../src/app/shared/models/body.model';
import { SUN_STAR_ID } from '../../src/app/shared/models/star.model';
import { fetchHorizonsBody, fetchHorizonsTrack, TRACK_START_YEAR, TRACK_STOP_YEAR, TrackPoint } from './lib/horizons';
import { eclipticToEquatorial, laplacePlaneToEquatorial } from '../../src/app/shared/astro/coordinates';
import { meanElementsAt, positionAtEpoch } from '../../src/app/shared/astro/kepler';
import { MeanOrbit, parsePlanetMeanElements, parseSatelliteMeanElements, parseSmallBodyElements } from '../../src/app/shared/astro/mean-elements';
import { fetchPlanetMeanElementsText, fetchSatelliteMeanElementsHtml, fetchSmallBodyAnswer } from './lib/mean-elements';
import { MIN_PERIODIC_TERM_DEG, orbitalTermsOfPrimeMeridian, parsePckRotationalElements, SUN_ROTATIONAL_ELEMENTS } from '../../src/app/shared/astro/rotational-elements';
import { fetchPckText } from './lib/pck';
import { dataPath, ensureDataDir } from './lib/paths';
const HOURS_PER_DAY = 24;
interface BodySpec {
id: string;
name: string;
kind: BodyRecord['kind'];
horizonsCommand: string;
center: string;
parentBodyId?: string;
/**
* Obliquity to orbit, in degrees, where the Horizons page states none. Pluto's is from the IAU
* WGCCRE 2015 pole (RA 132.99, Dec -6.16), 119.6 degrees: past 90, so it turns retrograde.
*/
obliquityDeg?: number;
/** The periapsis turns backwards; see `parseSatelliteMeanElements`. */
apsidesRegress?: boolean;
/** The pole of the planet's equator, where JPL gives its moons against that plane. */
equatorPole?: { raDeg: number; decDeg: number };
/** The Small-Body Database's name for a dwarf planet past Standish's tables: its orbit comes from there. */
sbdb?: string;
/** A measured mean radius, in km, for a body neither Horizons nor the SBDB gives one for. */
radiusKm?: number;
/** A measured sidereal day, in hours, where a later measurement overturns the one its source gives. */
rotationPeriodHours?: number;
/** The eccentricity for the card, where the row the orbit is drawn from gives an outdated one; see `BodyRecord.measuredEccentricity`. */
measuredEccentricity?: number;
/** A moon that does not keep one face to its planet: its page's own spin, or none, is kept. */
spinsFreely?: boolean;
/** A moon heavy enough to move its planet round their barycentre visibly; see `BodyRecord.massRatio`. */
barycentric?: boolean;
/**
* Corrections to a row of the satellite table, each where the row disagrees with JPL's own
* Horizons ephemeris and the reason is known; see the specs that carry them.
*/
nodeOffsetDeg?: number;
epochJd?: number;
periodDays?: number;
/**
* The terms of the IAU's W that are this locked moon's motion along its orbit, which its row has
* no column for: W's quadratic, and the term whose angle turns at `angleRateDegPerCentury`, if
* given. See `orbitalTermsOfPrimeMeridian`.
*/
orbitFromW?: { angleRateDegPerCentury?: number };
/**
* Days between the Horizons positions the orbit is checked against from 1950 to 2100; 2 unless
* the error changes faster than that. Nereid, at an eccentricity of 0.75, sweeps through its
* periapsis, where the mean ellipse is furthest out, in days; Hyperion, on a row whose
* eccentricity is a quarter of its real one, peaks within a day too (22.23 degrees sampled daily
* where every other day gave 22.14).
*/
trackStepDays?: number;
}
/** S5 in pck00011.tpc, 316.45 + 506.2 T: the libration of Mimas and Tethys in their 4:2 resonance. */
const MIMAS_TETHYS_LIBRATION = { angleRateDegPerCentury: 506.2 };
/**
* The poles of the equators JPL refers Uranus's and Pluto's moons to, from the IAU WGCCRE 2015
* report, each taken at the end the table's inclinations are measured from (Titania 0.079
* degrees, Charon 0.080): the end the moons go round anticlockwise. For Pluto that is the pole
* the IAU gives, 132.993 / -6.163, which for dwarf planets follows the right-hand rule. For
* Uranus the IAU gives the other end, 257.311 / -15.175, named north because it lies on the
* ecliptic's north side; the table measures inclinations from 77.311 / 15.175 but counts its
* nodes from where the equator rises through the ICRF equator going round the IAU's pole, which
* is 180 degrees from where it rises going round this one: hence Uranus's moons' 180-degree node
* offset. Read with this pole and no offset, Ariel was 180 degrees from Horizons at every date
* from 1980 to 2100; read against the IAU's pole, anywhere from 1 to 179.
*/
const URANUS_EQUATOR_POLE = { raDeg: 77.311, decDeg: 15.175 };
const PLUTO_EQUATOR_POLE = { raDeg: 132.993, decDeg: -6.163 };
const URANUS_MOON = { kind: 'moon', center: '500@799', parentBodyId: 'uranus', equatorPole: URANUS_EQUATOR_POLE, nodeOffsetDeg: 180 } as const;
// Sun-centered planets/dwarf, then their major moons (planetocentric elements).
const BODY_SPECS: BodySpec[] = [
{ id: 'mercury', name: 'Mercury', kind: 'planet', horizonsCommand: '199', center: '500@10' },
{ id: 'venus', name: 'Venus', kind: 'planet', horizonsCommand: '299', center: '500@10' },
{ id: 'earth', name: 'Earth', kind: 'planet', horizonsCommand: '399', center: '500@10' },
{ id: 'mars', name: 'Mars', kind: 'planet', horizonsCommand: '499', center: '500@10' },
{ id: 'jupiter', name: 'Jupiter', kind: 'planet', horizonsCommand: '599', center: '500@10' },
{ id: 'saturn', name: 'Saturn', kind: 'planet', horizonsCommand: '699', center: '500@10' },
{ id: 'uranus', name: 'Uranus', kind: 'planet', horizonsCommand: '799', center: '500@10' },
{ id: 'neptune', name: 'Neptune', kind: 'planet', horizonsCommand: '899', center: '500@10' },
{ id: 'pluto', name: 'Pluto', kind: 'dwarf', horizonsCommand: '999', center: '500@10', obliquityDeg: 119.6 },
{ id: 'ceres', name: 'Ceres', kind: 'dwarf', horizonsCommand: '1;', center: '500@10', sbdb: 'Ceres' },
// Eris, Haumea and Makemake have no radius in the SBDB, the Horizons pages ("RAD= n.a.") or the
// IAU WGCCRE 2015 report, so each carries its stellar-occultation measurement. Eris: 1163 km,
// Sicardy et al. 2011 (Nature 478, 493). Haumea is triaxial, 1161 x 852 x 513 km, Ortiz et al.
// 2017 (Nature 550, 219); drawn as a sphere, at the radius of the sphere of the same volume.
// Makemake: 1434 km across its equator and 1422 across its projected pole, Brown 2013 (ApJ 767,
// L7); the same mean.
//
// Eris's day is not the SBDB's 25.9 hours, a light curve of partial coverage (Roe et al. 2008) the
// SBDB itself flags as "may be wrong by 30 percent or so": it turns once in 15.771 +/- 0.008 days
// (Bernstein et al. 2023, PSJ 4, 115), locked to Dysnomia's 15.786-day orbit (Szakáts et al.
// 2023, A&A 669, L3). On the SBDB's figure it turned 14.6 times too fast.
{ id: 'eris', name: 'Eris', kind: 'dwarf', horizonsCommand: '136199;', center: '500@10', sbdb: 'Eris', radiusKm: 1163, rotationPeriodHours: 15.771 * 24 },
{ id: 'haumea', name: 'Haumea', kind: 'dwarf', horizonsCommand: '136108;', center: '500@10', sbdb: 'Haumea', radiusKm: 797.6 },
{ id: 'makemake', name: 'Makemake', kind: 'dwarf', horizonsCommand: '136472;', center: '500@10', sbdb: 'Makemake', radiusKm: 715 },
{ id: 'moon', name: 'Moon', kind: 'moon', horizonsCommand: '301', center: '500@399', parentBodyId: 'earth' },
{ id: 'phobos', name: 'Phobos', kind: 'moon', horizonsCommand: '401', center: '500@499', parentBodyId: 'mars', orbitFromW: {} },
{ id: 'deimos', name: 'Deimos', kind: 'moon', horizonsCommand: '402', center: '500@499', parentBodyId: 'mars' },
{ id: 'io', name: 'Io', kind: 'moon', horizonsCommand: '501', center: '500@599', parentBodyId: 'jupiter', apsidesRegress: true },
{ id: 'europa', name: 'Europa', kind: 'moon', horizonsCommand: '502', center: '500@599', parentBodyId: 'jupiter', apsidesRegress: true },
{ id: 'ganymede', name: 'Ganymede', kind: 'moon', horizonsCommand: '503', center: '500@599', parentBodyId: 'jupiter' },
{ id: 'callisto', name: 'Callisto', kind: 'moon', horizonsCommand: '504', center: '500@599', parentBodyId: 'jupiter' },
{ id: 'mimas', name: 'Mimas', kind: 'moon', horizonsCommand: '601', center: '500@699', parentBodyId: 'saturn', orbitFromW: MIMAS_TETHYS_LIBRATION },
{ id: 'enceladus', name: 'Enceladus', kind: 'moon', horizonsCommand: '602', center: '500@699', parentBodyId: 'saturn' },
{ id: 'tethys', name: 'Tethys', kind: 'moon', horizonsCommand: '603', center: '500@699', parentBodyId: 'saturn', orbitFromW: MIMAS_TETHYS_LIBRATION },
{ id: 'dione', name: 'Dione', kind: 'moon', horizonsCommand: '604', center: '500@699', parentBodyId: 'saturn' },
{ id: 'rhea', name: 'Rhea', kind: 'moon', horizonsCommand: '605', center: '500@699', parentBodyId: 'saturn' },
{ id: 'titan', name: 'Titan', kind: 'moon', horizonsCommand: '606', center: '500@699', parentBodyId: 'saturn' },
// Hyperion tumbles ("Rotational period = Chaotic") and Phoebe, captured, turns in 9.27 hours.
// Hyperion's eccentricity is 0.105 in JPL's current table (ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sats/elem, SAT441).
{ id: 'hyperion', name: 'Hyperion', kind: 'moon', horizonsCommand: '607', center: '500@699', parentBodyId: 'saturn', spinsFreely: true, measuredEccentricity: 0.105, trackStepDays: 1 },
{ id: 'iapetus', name: 'Iapetus', kind: 'moon', horizonsCommand: '608', center: '500@699', parentBodyId: 'saturn' },
// Phoebe's row gives a mean motion of 0.6569114 degrees a day, a 548.02-day year, where its
// Horizons page and JPL's current table (SAT441) give 550.30: the table's own note warns that
// its source misstated the mean motions of retrograde moons. On the row's figure Phoebe was
// 25 degrees from Horizons by 2025 and 100 by 2075; on the current period, within 2.6 from 1950
// to 2100 (2.58 in 1969).
{ id: 'phoebe', name: 'Phoebe', kind: 'moon', horizonsCommand: '609', center: '500@699', parentBodyId: 'saturn', spinsFreely: true, periodDays: 550.30391 },
{ id: 'miranda', name: 'Miranda', horizonsCommand: '705', ...URANUS_MOON },
{ id: 'ariel', name: 'Ariel', horizonsCommand: '701', ...URANUS_MOON },
{ id: 'umbriel', name: 'Umbriel', horizonsCommand: '702', ...URANUS_MOON },
{ id: 'titania', name: 'Titania', horizonsCommand: '703', ...URANUS_MOON },
{ id: 'oberon', name: 'Oberon', horizonsCommand: '704', ...URANUS_MOON },
{ id: 'triton', name: 'Triton', kind: 'moon', horizonsCommand: '801', center: '500@899', parentBodyId: 'neptune' },
// Nereid's eccentric orbit, 0.75, cannot hold a face to Neptune; its page states no spin.
{ id: 'nereid', name: 'Nereid', kind: 'moon', horizonsCommand: '802', center: '500@899', parentBodyId: 'neptune', spinsFreely: true, trackStepDays: 1 },
{ id: 'proteus', name: 'Proteus', kind: 'moon', horizonsCommand: '808', center: '500@899', parentBodyId: 'neptune' },
// Pluto's section prints its epoch as 2000 Jan 1.0; JPL's current table gives Charon's as
// 2000-01-01.5, and read at 1.0 Charon sat 27.8 to 28.2 degrees — half a day of its motion is
// 28.2 — from Horizons at every date from 1980 to 2100. At 1.5 it is within 0.4.
{ id: 'charon', name: 'Charon', kind: 'moon', horizonsCommand: '901', center: '500@999', parentBodyId: 'pluto', equatorPole: PLUTO_EQUATOR_POLE, epochJd: 2451545.0, barycentric: true }
];
/** The moons whose day is not their orbit; `build.ts` holds every other moon to its lock. */
export const FREELY_SPINNING_MOONS = new Set(BODY_SPECS.filter((spec) => spec.spinsFreely).map((spec) => spec.id));
/**
* Writes `bodies.json` for the major planets, the five dwarf planets, and every moon in JPL's
* mean-element table more than 100 km in mean radius — Phoebe, at 106.6, the smallest: JPL's
* mean orbital elements for where they go, or the SBDB's osculating ones where there are none,
* JPL Horizons for their size and spin, and the IAU's rotational elements for where their poles
* point and which face is where. Horizons' osculating elements for the same date come back
* alongside, for `build.ts` to check the mean ones against.
*/
export async function fetchSolarSystem(): Promise<{ bodies: BodyRecord[]; horizonsOrbits: Map<string, OrbitalElements>; horizonsTracks: Map<string, TrackPoint[]> }> {
console.log(`Fetching ${BODY_SPECS.length} solar-system bodies from JPL (mean elements, Horizons, NAIF's PCK)...`);
const bodies: BodyRecord[] = [];
const horizonsOrbits = new Map<string, OrbitalElements>();
const horizonsTracks = new Map<string, TrackPoint[]>();
const planetElements = await fetchPlanetMeanElementsText();
const satelliteElements = await fetchSatelliteMeanElementsHtml();
const pck = await fetchPckText();
// The app turns the Sun by elements it carries itself; they must be the kernel's.
if (JSON.stringify(parsePckRotationalElements(pck, 10)?.elements) !== JSON.stringify(SUN_ROTATIONAL_ELEMENTS)) {
throw new Error(`The Sun's rotational elements in the app, ${JSON.stringify(SUN_ROTATIONAL_ELEMENTS)}, are not the kernel's.`);
}
const gmById = new Map<string, number | undefined>();
for (const spec of BODY_SPECS) {
const result = await fetchHorizonsBody({
command: spec.horizonsCommand,
center: spec.center,
cacheKey: `horizons-${spec.id}.txt`
});
horizonsOrbits.set(spec.id, result.orbit);
gmById.set(spec.id, result.gmKm3PerS2);
// NAIF numbers a small body 2 000 000 past its catalogue number: Ceres, "1;" to Horizons, is 2000001.
const naifId = spec.horizonsCommand.endsWith(';') ? 2_000_000 + Number.parseInt(spec.horizonsCommand, 10) : Number(spec.horizonsCommand);
const rotation = parsePckRotationalElements(pck, naifId);
if (!rotation) {
console.warn(` no IAU rotational elements for ${spec.name}; its pole and meridian are not known.`);
} else if (rotation.skippedDeg.length > 0) {
console.log(` ${spec.name}: ${rotation.skippedDeg.length} periodic terms under ${MIN_PERIODIC_TERM_DEG} degrees left out, the largest ${Math.max(...rotation.skippedDeg)}.`);
}
const parentName = BODY_SPECS.find((candidate) => candidate.id === spec.parentBodyId)?.name;
const smallBody = spec.sbdb ? parseSmallBodyElements(await fetchSmallBodyAnswer(spec.sbdb, `sbdb-${spec.id}.json`)) : undefined;
const read: MeanOrbit =
smallBody ??
(parentName
? parseSatelliteMeanElements(satelliteElements, parentName, spec.name, spec.apsidesRegress ?? false, spec.equatorPole)
: parsePlanetMeanElements(planetElements, spec.id));
const corrected: MeanOrbit = {
...read,
orbit: {
...read.orbit,
longitudeOfAscendingNodeDeg: read.orbit.longitudeOfAscendingNodeDeg + (spec.nodeOffsetDeg ?? 0),
epochJd: spec.epochJd ?? read.orbit.epochJd
},
rates: spec.periodDays ? { ...read.rates, meanMotionDegPerDay: 360 / spec.periodDays } : read.rates
};
if (spec.orbitFromW && !rotation) {
throw new Error(`${spec.name}'s orbit takes terms from a W the kernel does not give.`);
}
const fromW = spec.orbitFromW && orbitalTermsOfPrimeMeridian(rotation!.elements, corrected.orbit.epochJd, spec.orbitFromW.angleRateDegPerCentury);
const mean: MeanOrbit = fromW
? {
...corrected,
orbit: { ...corrected.orbit, meanAnomalyAtEpochDeg: corrected.orbit.meanAnomalyAtEpochDeg + fromW.meanAnomalyDeg },
rates: { ...corrected.rates, meanMotionDegPerDay: corrected.rates.meanMotionDegPerDay + fromW.meanMotionDegPerDay, meanAnomalyTerms: fromW.meanAnomalyTerms }
}
: corrected;
// Standish's fit states its own span, 3000 BC to AD 3000. The moons' table and the SBDB state
// none, and hold for far less: each card says how far its orbit stays from Horizons over the
// span it was measured, where the clock reaches AD 1 to AD 3000.
let orbitSource = mean.orbitSource;
if (parentName || smallBody) {
const stepDays = spec.trackStepDays ?? 2;
const track = await fetchHorizonsTrack(spec.horizonsCommand, spec.center, stepDays, `horizons-track-${spec.id}-${stepDays}d.txt`);
horizonsTracks.set(spec.id, track);
const worst = Math.max(...track.map((point) => offsetFromTrackDeg(mean, point)));
orbitSource += `, within ${(Math.ceil(worst * 10) / 10).toFixed(1)} degrees of Horizons from ${TRACK_START_YEAR} to ${TRACK_STOP_YEAR}`;
}
const radiusKm = smallBody?.radiusKm ?? spec.radiusKm ?? result.radiusKm;
if (radiusKm === undefined) {
console.warn(` no physical radius found for ${spec.name}; defaulting to 0.`);
}
// A moon listed here is tidally locked unless its spec says otherwise, so its day is its
// orbit: the sidereal period from the same mean motion that carries it round. Not every page
// says so — the Moon's gives a rate, Titan's and Proteus's nothing. Every locked moon here is
// turned by its IAU W rather than by this day, and `build.ts` checks that W and the orbit keep
// its face to its planet from 1950 to 2100; this day is what the renderer would turn a moon
// without W by.
const rotationPeriodHours = result.tidallyLocked || (spec.kind === 'moon' && !spec.spinsFreely)
? (360 / mean.rates.meanMotionDegPerDay) * HOURS_PER_DAY
: (spec.rotationPeriodHours ?? (smallBody ? smallBody.rotationPeriodHours : result.rotationPeriodHours));
const parentGm = spec.barycentric && spec.parentBodyId ? gmById.get(spec.parentBodyId) : undefined;
if (spec.barycentric && (result.gmKm3PerS2 === undefined || parentGm === undefined)) {
throw new Error(`${spec.name} and its planet need a GM each to place their barycentre.`);
}
if (rotationPeriodHours === undefined) {
console.warn(` no rotation period found for ${spec.name}; it will not turn.`);
}
bodies.push({
id: spec.id,
systemStarId: SUN_STAR_ID,
name: spec.name,
kind: spec.kind,
radiusKm: radiusKm ?? 0,
orbit: mean.orbit,
rates: mean.rates,
...(mean.laplacePole ? { laplacePole: mean.laplacePole } : {}),
orbitSource,
...(spec.measuredEccentricity !== undefined ? { measuredEccentricity: spec.measuredEccentricity } : {}),
...(spec.parentBodyId ? { parentBodyId: spec.parentBodyId } : {}),
...(parentGm !== undefined ? { massRatio: result.gmKm3PerS2! / parentGm } : {}),
...(rotationPeriodHours !== undefined ? { rotationPeriodHours } : {}),
...((result.obliquityDeg ?? spec.obliquityDeg) !== undefined ? { obliquityDeg: result.obliquityDeg ?? spec.obliquityDeg } : {}),
...(rotation ? { rotationalElements: rotation.elements } : {})
});
}
ensureDataDir();
writeFileSync(dataPath('bodies.json'), JSON.stringify(bodies, null, 2));
console.log(` wrote ${bodies.length} bodies.`);
return { bodies, horizonsOrbits, horizonsTracks };
}
/** Degrees between where a moon's or dwarf planet's mean elements put it and where Horizons has it. */
export function offsetFromTrackDeg(mean: Pick<MeanOrbit, 'orbit' | 'rates' | 'laplacePole'>, point: TrackPoint): number {
const own = positionAtEpoch(meanElementsAt(mean.orbit, mean.rates, point.jd));
const place = mean.laplacePole ? laplacePlaneToEquatorial(own, mean.laplacePole) : eclipticToEquatorial(own);
const cosine = (place.x * point.x + place.y * point.y + place.z * point.z) / (Math.hypot(place.x, place.y, place.z) * Math.hypot(point.x, point.y, point.z));
return (Math.acos(Math.min(1, Math.max(-1, cosine))) * 180) / Math.PI;
}
if (require.main === module) {
fetchSolarSystem().catch((error) => {
console.error(error);
process.exitCode = 1;
});
}