What is Sorcha?

Sorcha (pronounced "surk-ha") is an open-source Solar System survey simulator written in Python. Sorcha means light or brightness in Irish and Scots Gaelic. Sorcha estimates the brightness of simulated Solar System small bodies and determines which ones the survey could detect in each of the survey's observations based on user set criteria. Sorcha has been designed with the Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) in mind. The software has a modular design, and our code can be adapted to be used with any survey.

Warning

This documentation site and the software package it describes are under active development. Validation is still on-going. DO NOT USE this for science purposes just yet. WE REALLY MEAN THIS. THE CODEBASE IS UNDER HEAVY DEVELOPMENT.

Welcome to Sorcha's documentation!

This documentation site contains an installation guide, an overview of how Sorcha works, tutorials, and demonstration notebooks that show how each of the various key filters within Sorcha work.