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Published August 20, 2022 | Version Published
Journal Article Open

The Astropy Project: Sustaining and Growing a Community-oriented Open-source Project and the Latest Major Release (v5.0) of the Core Package

Creators

  • 1. Flatiron Institute
  • 2. Astropy Coordination Committee.
  • 3. ROR icon Space Telescope Science Institute
  • 4. ROR icon University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
  • 5. ROR icon University of Toronto
  • 6. ROR icon Infrared Processing and Analysis Center
  • 7. ROR icon University of Michigan–Ann Arbor
  • 8. ROR icon University of St Andrews
  • 9. ROR icon TU Dortmund University
  • 10. ROR icon Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
  • 11. ROR icon University of Bern
  • 12. ROR icon University of Florida
  • 13. ROR icon Lund University
  • 14. ROR icon NOIRLab
  • 15. ROR icon Macquarie University
  • 16. Aperio Software Ltd, ., Insight House, Riverside Business Park, Stoney Common Road, Stansted, Essex, CM24 8PL, UK
  • 17. ROR icon South African Radio Astronomy Observatory
  • 18. Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica/Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari, via della Scienza 5, I-09047 Selargius (CA), Italy
  • 19. ROR icon Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • 20. ROR icon Newcastle University
  • 21. ROR icon Konkoly Observatory
  • 22. ROR icon Research Centre for Astronomy and Earth Sciences
  • 23. ROR icon Indian Institute of Technology Mandi
  • 24. ROR icon Bay Area Environmental Research Institute
  • 25. ROR icon Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas
  • 26. ROR icon University of Pune
  • 27. ROR icon University of Antofagasta
  • 28. ROR icon Wake Forest University
  • 29. ROR icon French National Centre for Scientific Research
  • 30. ROR icon Minnesota State University Moorhead
  • 31. Independent Astropy Contributor
  • 32. ROR icon Hunter College
  • 33. ROR icon American Museum of Natural History
  • 34. ROR icon University of Cambridge
  • 35. ROR icon Curtin University
  • 36. ROR icon Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
  • 37. ROR icon National Solar Observatory
  • 38. ROR icon University of Bonn
  • 39. ROR icon University of Nottingham
  • 40. ROR icon Lockheed Martin (United States)
  • 41. ROR icon University of Tokyo
  • 42. ROR icon Princeton University
  • 43. ScienceBetter Consulting, LLC, 4 West 101st Street, No. 29, New York, NY 10025, USA
  • 44. ROR icon Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani
  • 45. ROR icon University of Oxford
  • 46. ROR icon University of Bristol
  • 47. ROR icon Drexel University
  • 48. ROR icon Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
  • 49. ROR icon Aarhus University
  • 50. ROR icon Australian National University
  • 51. Förderkreis Planetarium Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
  • 52. ROR icon University of Arizona
  • 53. ROR icon Johns Hopkins University
  • 54. ROR icon Indian Institute of Astrophysics
  • 55. ROR icon Christ University
  • 56. ROR icon University of Washington
  • 57. ROR icon Polish Academy of Sciences
  • 58. AkondLab, Walbrzyska 6-8, Wroclaw, Poland
  • 59. ROR icon University of Maryland, College Park
  • 60. ROR icon Michigan State University
  • 61. ROR icon Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
  • 62. ROR icon University of Bordeaux
  • 63. ROR icon University of Massachusetts Amherst
  • 64. ROR icon Queen's University Belfast
  • 65. ROR icon Science and Technology Corporation (Netherlands)
  • 66. ROR icon The University of Texas at San Antonio
  • 67. Winter Way, Lerum, Sweden
  • 68. ROR icon Durham University
  • 69. ROR icon Complutense University of Madrid
  • 70. ROR icon Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía
  • 71. ROR icon Syracuse University
  • 72. ROR icon National University of La Plata
  • 73. MMT Observatory, Tucson, AZ, USA
  • 74. ROR icon Boston University
  • 75. University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwest Switzerland, Bahnhofstrasse 6, 5210 Windisch, Switzerland
  • 76. ROR icon American University
  • 77. ROR icon SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
  • 78. ROR icon Royal Observatory
  • 79. ROR icon International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad
  • 80. SKAO Observatory, Jodrell Bank, Cheshire, UK
  • 81. ROR icon The University of Texas at Austin
  • 82. ROR icon University of Hawaii at Manoa
  • 83. NSF Graduate Research Fellow.
  • 84. ROR icon University of Geneva
  • 85. ROR icon École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
  • 86. ROR icon Goddard Space Flight Center
  • 87. ROR icon Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology
  • 88. J. Sick Codes Inc, ., Penetanguishene ON, Canada
  • 89. ROR icon Gemini North Observatory
  • 90. ROR icon Swinburne University of Technology
  • 91. TARDIS Collaboration.
  • 92. ROR icon Centre of Excellence for All-Sky Astrophysics
  • 93. ROR icon University College London
  • 94. ROR icon Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam
  • 95. ROR icon Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy
  • 96. ROR icon Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University
  • 97. ROR icon Planetary Science Institute
  • 98. ROR icon Southwest Research Institute
  • 99. ROR icon University of Belgrade
  • 100. ROR icon Atal Bihari Vajpayee Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management
  • 101. ROR icon Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
  • 102. ROR icon American Astronomical Society
  • 103. ROR icon University of Exeter
  • 104. ROR icon Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy
  • 105. ROR icon University of Pittsburgh
  • 106. ROR icon National Radio Astronomy Observatory
  • 107. ROR icon Purple Mountain Observatory
  • 108. ROR icon San Diego Supercomputer Center

Abstract

The Astropy Project supports and fosters the development of open-source and openly developed Python packages that provide commonly needed functionality to the astronomical community. A key element of the Astropy Project is the core package astropy, which serves as the foundation for more specialized projects and packages. In this article, we summarize key features in the core package as of the recent major release, version 5.0, and provide major updates on the Project. We then discuss supporting a broader ecosystem of interoperable packages, including connections with several astronomical observatories and missions. We also revisit the future outlook of the Astropy Project and the current status of Learn Astropy. We conclude by raising and discussing the current and future challenges facing the Project.

Copyright and License

© 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.

Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank the members of the community who have contributed to Astropy, opened issues and provided feedback, and supported the Project in a number of different ways.

We acknowledge the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation for their continued financial support. This work is partially supported by NASA under grant No. 80NSSC22K0347 issued through the NASA ROSES program. This work is partially supported by the international Gemini Observatory, a program of NSF’s NOIRLab, which is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation, on behalf of the Gemini partnership of Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, the Republic of Korea, and the United States of America. We also thank NumFOCUS and the Python Software Foundation for financial support.

J.A.A.-M. acknowledges funding support from Macquarie University through the International Macquarie University Research Excellence Scholarship (“iMQRES”). A.B. was supported by the Lendület Program of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, project No. LP2018-7, and the KKP-137523 “SeismoLab” Élvonal grant of the Hungarian Research, Development and Innovation Office (NKFIH). M.B. gratefully acknowledges support from the ANID BASAL project FB210003 and the FONDECYT regular grant 1211000. F.D.E. acknowledges funding through the H2020 ERC Consolidator grant 683184, the ERC Advanced grant 695671 “QUENCH” and support from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). S.G. made contributions to Astropy as part of the Google Summer of Code 2021. S.G. acknowledges some intellectual support from the CCAD-UNC-NOVA. Funding for the Stellar Astrophysics Centre is provided by The Danish National Research Foundation (grant agreement No.: DNRF106). N.K. acknowledges support from the MIT Pappalardo fellowship. K.A.O. acknowledges support from the European Research Council (ERC) through Advanced Investigator grant to C.S. Frenk, DMIDAS (GA 786910). C.P. is supported by the Canadian Space Agency under a contract with NRC Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics. S.P. has been supported by Spanish MINECO-FEDER grant RTI2018-096188-B-I00 J.P.G. acknowledges funding support from Spanish public funds for research from project PID2019-107061GB-C63 from the “Programas Estatales de Generación de Conocimiento y Fortalecimiento Científico y Tecnológico del Sistema de I+D+i y de I+D+i Orientada a los Retos de la Sociedad,” as well as from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the “Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa” award to the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (SEV-2017-0709). N.S. acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation through the Graduate Research Fellowship Program under grant 1842402. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. Supported by the international Gemini Observatory, a program of NSF’s NOIRLab, which is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation, on behalf of the Gemini Observatory partnership: the National Science Foundation (United States), National Research Council (Canada), Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo (Chile), Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación (Argentina), Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia, Inovações e Comunicações (Brazil), and Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (Republic of Korea). Parts of this research were supported by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All-Sky Astro-physics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D), through project number CE170100013. D.S. is supported by STFC grant ST/S000240/1. N.S. acknowledges the support of the Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Canadian Graduate Scholarship—Doctoral Program, [funding reference numbers CGSD547212020].

The Astropy community is supported by and makes use of a number of organizations and services outside the traditional academic community. We thank Google for financing and organizing the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) program, which has funded several students per year to work on Astropy-related projects over the summer. These students often turn into long-term contributors. Within the academic community, we thank institutions that make it possible for astronomers and other developers on their staff to contribute their time to the development of Astropy projects. We would like to acknowledge the support of the Space Telescope Science Institute, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the South African Astronomical Observatory.

Furthermore, the Astropy packages would not exist in their current form without a number of web services for code hosting, continuous integration, and documentation; in particular, Astropy heavily relies on GitHub, Azure Pipelines, CircleCI, and Read the Docs.

This research has made use of NASA’s Astrophysics Data System.

astropy interfaces with the SIMBAD database, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France. It also makes use of the ERFA library (Tollerud et al. 2021), which in turn derives from the IAU SOFA Collection 136 developed by the International Astronomical Union Standards of Fundamental Astronomy (Hohenkerk 2011).

Software References

astropy (Astropy Collaboration et al. 2013, 2018), Cython (Behnel et al. 2011), geopandas (Jordahl et al. 2020), matplotlib (Hunter 2007), numpy (Harris et al. 2020), pandas (McKinney 2010), scipy (Virtanen et al. 2020).

Additional Information

The author list has two parts: the authors that made significant contributions to the writing and/or coordination of the paper (in order of contribution), followed by maintainers of and contributors to the Astropy Project (in alphabetical order). The position in the author list does not correspond to contributions to the Astropy Project as a whole. A more complete list of contributors to the core package can be found in the package repository, and at
the Astropy team webpage.

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Additional details

Related works

Is new version of
Discussion Paper: arXiv:2206.14220 (arXiv)

Funding

Moore Foundation
GBMF8435
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
80NSSC22K0347
Macquarie University
Hungarian Academy of Sciences
LP2018-7
National Research, Development and Innovation Office
KKP-137523
Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo
FB210003
Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico
1211000
European Research Council
683184
European Research Council
695671
Danish National Research Foundation
DNRF106
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
European Research Council
786910
Canadian Space Agency
Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades
RTI2018-096188-B-I00
Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades
PID2019-107061GB-C63
Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía
SEV-2017-0709
National Science Foundation
1842402
Australian Research Council
CE170100013
Science and Technology Facilities Council
ST/S000240/1
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council
CGSD547212020
Google (United States)

Dates

Accepted
2022-06-06
Available
2022-08-24
Published

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Caltech groups
Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC), Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy (PMA)
Publication Status
Published