The Minor Planet Center (MPC) is the International Astronomical Union’s recognized clearing house for all positional and categorization data for small bodies, a.k.a. comets, asteroids, and irregular satellites. Comprehensive Discovery statistics are often represented as lists and specialized data tables on the MPC’s website (https://minorplanetcenter.net). We are creating an interface to summarize the discovery and observation data available through a variety of sources. Specifically, we use the Minor Planet Center’s table containing orbital elements for all comets, the NASA JPL Small Bodies Database API, and a copy of the MPC’s live processing database hosted by the Small Bodies Node. Each of these are parsed for the relevant data with a Python script using either HTTP requests or a Python-PostgreSQL library. This data is then processed and copied to the live site files, where it is then rendered in graph form by the user’s browser by using the Plotly.js framework. The site is designed to work as it is and, beyond a web browser, should not require the user to install any additional software.

Comet Statistics contains three main sections: comet discoveries, orbital elements, and unique observations. Similarly to summary information provided in Bauer et al. (2023), each page also supports overlaying an arbitrary number of user-specified observatory codes onto each graph.

The comet discovery subpage shows statistics by year and comet type. Data is retrieved from the Minor Planet Center, along with the NASA JPL Small Bodies Database to cover potential missing data. The orbital elements section contains subpages for different comet types. Each subpage contains five graphs relating to orbital elements. Orbital element data is retrieved from the Minor Planet Center. The third section of the site, unique observations, shows unique object observations by year and by comet type.

In addition to the three graphical data sections of the site, Comet Statistics is also standing up an engine for converting between the “old” IAU designation system and the “new” IAU designation system. The purpose of this is to allow for a single reference source for comet nomenclature that will open legacy data sources to research investigations. By using this, researchers may be able to avoid confusion and refer to comets using only one designation system, even when source data may be referred to using multiple names.

References:
Bauer et al. 2023. arXiv:2210.09400 [astro-ph.EP]
https://minorplanetcenter.net
https://sbnmpc.astro.umd.edu/cometInfo/