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Schema: primary_objects

The primary objects table contains all objects designated by the MPC: minor planets, comets, and natural satellites.

Useful information

  • Both packed and unpacked forms are included for primary provisional designations.
  • Some fields are not being currently populated.
Column Data type Description
orbit_publication_references text[] References to MPC publications containing this orbit (DOU, MPEC, mid-month, Monthly-MPC, etc.)
comet boolean Whether the object-orbit is in the comet table (currently always false)
satellite boolean Whether the object-orbit is in the satellite table
barycentric boolean Whether the orbit is in a barycentric table (always false)
standard_minor_planet boolean Whether the orbit is in the standard_minor_planet table (not currently used)
nongravs boolean Whether orbit includes non-gravitational perturbations (not currently used)
created_at timestamp(6) without time zone Date and time of initial row insert
updated_at timestamp(6) without time zone Date and time of latest row update
orbit_published integer 0=unpublished, 1=MPEC, 2=DOU, 3=mid-month, 4=monthly
flag_all_object_obs_consistent boolean All observations checked for consistency (not currently used)
flag_allowed_external boolean Orbit computed with all available/consistent observations (not used)
flag_orbit_calculated_from_consistent_obs boolean Orbit from flagged-consistent observations (not used)
no_orbit boolean True if no orbit could be computed
standard_epoch boolean Whether standard-epoch orbit is populated
orbfit_epoch boolean Whether mid-observation epoch orbit is populated
object_type integer Object type classification
packed_primary_provisional_designation text Packed primary provisional designation (e.g. K17P08M)
id integer PostgreSQL automatically generated identifier for row of data
status integer Result of orbit fitting (not currently used)
unpacked_primary_provisional_designation text Unpacked primary provisional designation (e.g. 2017 PM8)

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