SS object#

Rubin-derived object-level quantities for recovered known small bodies.

Schema: SSObject table

Access#

The SS object table is accessible via the TAP and Butler services.

Recommended access service: TAP

TAP#

Citation: NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory (2026); Legacy Survey of Space and Time Data Preview 2: SSObject searchable catalog https://doi.org/10.71929/rubin/3382550 [BibTeX]
Table name: SSObject
Columns: 80
Rows: 299,343

Butler#

Citation: NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory (2026); Legacy Survey of Space and Time Data Preview 2: ss_object dataset type https://doi.org/10.71929/rubin/3382549 [BibTeX]
Dataset type: (‘ss_object’, {}, ArrowAstropy)
Format: Parquet
Number of Butler datasets: 1

Description#

A “Solar System object” in the DP2 tables is a moving object for which one or more difference image detections (DIASources) have been associated to a previously known small body as of 2026 March 13, including all objects that Rubin has discovered and submitted to the Minor Planet Center (MPC) up to that date.

SSObject includes the unique identifier integer ssObjectId, the unpacked primary provisional designation, total and per-band observation counts, the first observation epoch and observing arc, per-band phase-angle ranges, extendedness summaries, and selected quantities derived from the input MPC orbit.

The SSObject table can be joined to the SSSource table on the ssObjectId to obtain single-epoch measurements and observing geometry.

The SSObject table per-band absolute magnitudes were fitted to the associated PSF photometry with an H-G12 phase function. For DP2, G12 was fixed at 0.5 and only H was fitted; valid G12 values therefore all equal 0.5, while G12 uncertainties and the H-G12 covariance are undefined. A 0.05 magnitude uncertainty floor was included, and a robust initial fit was used to reject measurements beyond 10 sigma before the final least-squares fit. Users should compare the per-band nObsUsed and nObs values, inspect the phase-angle coverage and fit statistics, and treat sparsely sampled fits and cross-band colors with care.

The table also contains the Tisserand parameter with respect to Jupiter and Earth minimum-orbit-intersection-distance quantities computed from the input MPC elements. These values should not by themselves be used for hazard classification or close-approach prediction.

Processing#

The SS object table is the result of Solar System processing (SSP).

Tutorials#

See the 200-level catalog Tutorials for a notebook on the SS object table.