The digital map of everything beyond our solar system
In short: How do astronomers keep track of billions of celestial bodies? They use SIMBAD, a massive database that serves as the primary registry for objects in deep space. From individual stars to distant galaxies, it is the foundational archive where humanity stores its observations of the cosmos.
SIMBAD represents the acronym for Astronomical Data's Bibliography, Measurements and Set of Identifications. Located within France, the Centre de données astronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) manages this extensive archive of extra-solar bodies. It is not merely a list; it is an integrated system that combines physical measurements with a vast bibliography of academic literature, allowing researchers to trace the history of every observation made on a specific coordinate.
The database has undergone significant technological evolution since its inception. It originated from the merger of two older records—the Catalog of Stellar Identifications and the Bibliographic Star Index—which were housed at the Meudon Computer Centre until 1979. The first interactive online version debuted in 1981. By 1990, Version 3 was running on UNIX stations at the Volgograd Observatory using the C language. A major modernization occurred in the fall of 2006 with the release of Version 4, which transitioned to PostgreSQL storage and Java-based software.
The sheer scale of the data is staggering. As of June 1, 2020, SIMBAD houses information on approximately 5,800,000 stars and roughly 5,500,000 nonstellar objects, including galaxies, planetary nebulae, clusters, novae, and supernovae. While it is a cornerstone for stellar and extragalactic data, astronomers often cross-reference it with other specialized tools like NASA's Planetary Data System (PDS) for solar system bodies or the NASA Exoplanet Archive for worlds orbiting other stars.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: SIMBAD
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