Earth & space data platforms · Astropy Project (community)
Astropy
Open-source Python library providing core tools astronomers use for data analysis, coordinates, units and file formats.
Astropy is a community-maintained, open-source Python package that provides the common building blocks astronomers need: FITS file I/O, celestial coordinate transformations, physical unit and constant handling, time-scale conversions, cosmological calculations and table manipulation, alongside a growing ecosystem of affiliated packages for specific subfields (imaging, spectroscopy, time-series). It is maintained by a volunteer and institutionally-supported community coordinated through the Astropy Project, with funding from grants and in-kind contributions from observatories and universities rather than commercial sales. Because it standardizes formats and calculations that used to be reimplemented ad hoc across research groups, it has become close to a default dependency in professional and academic astronomy software, distributed free through PyPI and conda.
At a glance
| Vendor | Astropy Project (community) |
|---|---|
| Pricing model | Open source + paid options |
| Free tier | Yes |
| Deployment | Self-hosted |
| Open source | Yes (BSD-3-Clause) |
| Best for | Astronomers and astrophysicists writing Python analysis code who need standardized coordinates, units and file handling. |
Pricing
Free and open source; supported by grants and institutional contributions.
Pricing has not been verified yet — see the vendor's site.
Features
- FITS file reading and writing
- Celestial coordinate transformations
- Physical units and constants handling
- Time-scale and calendar conversions
- Cosmological calculations
- Table and array data structures
- Ecosystem of affiliated astronomy packages
Integrations
Profile last reviewed September 21, 2026