This is a list of astronomy and space related (downloadable if possible) datasets. When I'm learning new ways of working with data, I like to use astronomy and space related datasets to play with. For example, I used the asteroids dataset of the Minor Planet Center to learn how to use the pandas, matplotlib and sklearn libraries in Python (see https://youtu.be/iXjJNc8zGsM and https://youtu.be/mWxAq1NmKsU).
| Item | Info |
|---|---|
| Name | All the asteroids with calculated orbits contained in the MPC database |
| Content description | Orbital data of all know asteroids. Observational data. |
| Provider | Minor Planet Center |
| Location | http://www.minorplanetcenter.net/data |
| Formats | Fortran (.DAT), JSON (has extended data) |
| Retrieval | plain download |
| Size | 81 MB (extended set, compressed with gz), 450 MB (extended set, unzipped) |
| Partitioned | No |
| Records | about 750,000 |
| Updates | The extended dataset is updated daily. |
| Documentation | http://minorplanetcenter.net/Extended_Files/Extended_MPCORB_Data_Format_Manual.pdf |
| Item | Info |
|---|---|
| Name | GAIA DR1, DR2 |
| Content description | Positions (α, δ) and G magnitudes for all sources with acceptable formal standard errors on |
| positions. | |
| Provider | ESA |
| Location | https://gea.esac.esa.int/archive/ |
| Formats | CSV, FITS, Votable |
| Retrieval | Plain download |
| Size | |
| Partioned | Yes, files of 40 MB (CSV) |
| Records | 1,692,919,135 |
| Updates | Dataset DR2 was published 25 april 2018) |
| Documentation | https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/dr1, https://gea.esac.esa.int/archive/documentation/GDR2/Gaia_archive/chap_datamodel/sec_dm_main_tables/ssec_dm_gaia_source.html |
| Item | Info |
|---|---|
| Name | LIGO and VIRGO data |
| Content description | Gravitational wave data |
| Provider | LIGO |
| Location | https://losc.ligo.org/data/ |
| Formats | HDF5 and JSON |
| Retrieval | Make selection on the site, then download |
| Size | ? |
| Partioned | ? |
| Records | ? |
| Updates | In releases after certain amount of time. |
| Documentation | https://losc.ligo.org/data/#yellow_box, https://losc.ligo.org/tutorials/ |
| Item | Info |
|---|---|
| Name | The Open Supernovae Catalog |
| Content description | The goal of this catalog is to act as a centralized, open repository for supernova metadata, light curves, and spectra. |
| Provider | The Open Supernovae Catalog. Many contributors. Currently, the catalog is maintained by James Guillochon (ITC at the CfA) and Jerod Parrent (ITC at the CfA). |
| Location | https://sne.space/download/ |
| Formats | CSV, JSON (zipped, individual JSON files per supernovae) |
| Retrieval | Plain download, API |
| Size | 625 MB |
| Partioned | On ranges of years |
| Records | 45,577 supernovae with 508,318 individual photometric detections and 18,168 individual spectra |
| Updates | Yes. Whenever supernovae occur |
| Documentation | http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016arXiv160501054G |
| Item | Info |
|---|---|
| Name | CosmoSim |
| Content description | The CosmoSim database provides results from cosmological simulations performed within different projects: MultiDark and Bolshoi, CLUES, and Galaxies. |
| Provider | Leibniz-Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) |
| Location | https://www.cosmosim.org/ |
| Formats | CSV, XML |
| Retrieval | Registration, then a SQL query needs to be written |
| Size | Several terabytes ? |
| Partioned | No. Need to write SQL query |
| Records | ? |
| Updates | Presumably after new simulations |
| Documentation | https://www.cosmosim.org/cms/documentation/demos-and-tutorials/first-steps-with-cosmosim/ |
| Item | Info |
|---|---|
| Name | Fireball and bolide data |
| Content description | Exceptionally bright meteors that are spectacular enough to to be seen over a very wide area. Provided by U.S. Government sensors |
| Provider | NASA Center for Near Earth Object Studies |
| Location | https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/fireballs/ |
| Formats | CSV, Excel |
| Retrieval | Plain download |
| Size | 53 KB |
| Partioned | No |
| Records | 735 |
| Updates | Yes. When new occurrences happen |
| Documentation | https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/fireballs/ (Click "Table Column Descriptions") |
| Item | Info |
|---|---|
| Name | Meteorite Landings |
| Content description | information on all of the known meteorite landings |
| Provider | NASA |
| Location | https://data.nasa.gov/Space-Science/Meteorite-Landings/ak9y-cwf9 |
| Formats | CSV (Export) and JSON (API) |
| Retrieval | Click "Export" or API |
| Size | 4.6 MB |
| Partioned | No |
| Records | about 45,000 |
| Updates | Doesn't look like it's updated in a while |
| Documentation | Not known |
| Item | Info |
|---|---|
| Name | Fireball And Bolide Reports |
| Content description | Exceptionally bright meteors that are spectacular enough to to be seen over a very wide area. Provided by U.S. Government sensors |
| Provider | NASA |
| Location | https://data.nasa.gov/Space-Science/Fireball-And-Bolide-Reports/mc52-syum |
| Formats | CSV, CSV for Excel |
| Retrieval | Click Export |
| Size | 6 KB |
| Partioned | No |
| Records | 92 |
| Updates | No new updates since 2015. |
| Documentation | https://data.nasa.gov/Space-Science/Fireball-And-Bolide-Reports/mc52-syum |
| Item | Info |
|---|---|
| Name | HYG Stellar database |
| Content description | "The HYG database (v3.0) is a compilation of interesting (to me, anyway) stellar data from a variety of catalogs. It is useful for background information on all sorts of data: star names, positions, brightnesses, distances, and spectrum information. It also powers the charts elsewhere on this site." |
| Provider | David Nash |
| Location | http://www.astronexus.com/hyg, https://github.com/astronexus/HYG-Database |
| Formats | CSV |
| Retrieval | Plain download |
| Size | 33 MB |
| Partioned | No |
| Records | 119615 |
| Updates | Last on 3 years ago |
| Documentation | http://www.astronexus.com/hyg |
| Item | Info |
|---|---|
| Name | NASA Exoplanet Archive |
| Content description | Confirmed exoplanets |
| Provider | NASA |
| Location | https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/, https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/bulk_data_download/ (bulk) |
| Formats | CSV (web interface), PDF (obtainable with wget) |
| Retrieval | Via table in web interface or in bulk with wget |
| Size | 1 MB (simple table in CSV), ? (bulk) |
| Partioned | Bulk: per exoplanet |
| Records | 34031 (Summary reports in PDF) |
| Updates | When new discoveries occur |
| Documentation | https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/docs/API_exoplanet_columns.html, http://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/docs/batch_download_help.html (wget) |
Got anything to add to this list? Send a mail to astro_datasets@marcel-jan.eu.
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