juliensimon/iau-meteor-showers

---
license: cc-by-4.0
pretty_name: "IAU Meteor Shower Database"
language:
- en
description: "Official IAU Meteor Data Center shower database — 1,031 meteor showers with radiant coordinates, geocentric velocities, orbital elements, and parent body identifications."
task_categories:
- tabular-classification
- tabular-regression
tags:
- space
- meteors
- meteor-showers
- iau
- orbital-mechanics
- open-data
- tabular-data
size_categories:
- 1K<n<10K
configs:
- config_name: default
data_files:
- split: train
path: data/iau_meteor_showers.parquet
default: true
---

# IAU Meteor Shower Database

*Part of the [Orbital Mechanics Datasets](https://huggingface.co/collections/juliensimon/orbital-mechanics-datasets-69c24caca4ab3934c9856994) collection on Hugging Face.*

The complete IAU Meteor Data Center shower catalogue: **2,163** records covering
**1,031** uniquely numbered meteor showers. Each record represents one published
analysis of a shower, with radiant coordinates (J2000), geocentric velocity, orbital elements,
activity period, and — where known — the parent body.

## Dataset description

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) Meteor Data Center maintains the authoritative
list of meteor showers. This dataset includes every entry from the MDC shower database:
established showers, working-list candidates, and records flagged for various issues
(insufficient data, duplicates, misclassifications). Multiple records per shower reflect
independent analyses by different research groups.

**108** showers have the "established" status, verified by the IAU Commission F1.

## Schema

| Column | Type | Description |
|--------|------|-------------|
| `lp` | int32 | Sequential record number |
| `iau_no` | int32 | IAU shower number (unique per shower) |
| `ad_no` | int32 | Additional solution number (0 = primary, 1+ = alternate analyses) |
| `code` | string | Three-letter IAU code (e.g. PER, GEM, LEO) |
| `status_code` | int16 | Numeric status flag (1=established, 0=working list, negative=issues) |
| `status` | string | Human-readable status label |
| `is_established` | bool | True if shower has IAU established status |
| `submission_date` | string | Date submitted to MDC |
| `shower_name` | string | Full shower name-designation |
| `activity_type` | string | Activity pattern (annual, variable, etc.) |
| `sol_lon_begin_deg` | float64 | Solar longitude at activity start (deg) |
| `sol_lon_end_deg` | float64 | Solar longitude at activity end (deg) |
| `sol_lon_peak_deg` | float64 | Solar longitude at peak (deg) |
| `ra_deg` | float64 | Right ascension of radiant (deg, J2000) |
| `dec_deg` | float64 | Declination of radiant (deg, J2000) |
| `ra_daily_motion` | float64 | Daily motion in RA (deg/day) |
| `dec_daily_motion` | float64 | Daily motion in Dec (deg/day) |
| `geocentric_velocity_kms` | float64 | Geocentric velocity (km/s) |
| `sun_centered_ecliptic_lon_deg` | float64 | Sun-centered ecliptic longitude of radiant (deg) |
| `sun_centered_ecliptic_lat_deg` | float64 | Sun-centered ecliptic latitude of radiant (deg) |
| `ecliptic_lat_deg` | float64 | Ecliptic latitude of radiant (deg) |
| `theta_deg` | float64 | Angular distance parameter theta (deg) |
| `phi_deg` | float64 | Angular distance parameter phi (deg) |
| `flags` | string | Data quality/validation flags |
| `semi_major_axis_au` | float64 | Orbital semi-major axis (AU) |
| `perihelion_distance_au` | float64 | Perihelion distance (AU) |
| `eccentricity` | float64 | Orbital eccentricity |
| `arg_perihelion_deg` | float64 | Argument of perihelion (deg) |
| `ascending_node_deg` | float64 | Longitude of ascending node (deg) |
| `inclination_deg` | float64 | Orbital inclination (deg) |
| `n_meteors` | int32 | Number of meteors in the analysis |
| `group_no` | int32 | Shower group number |
| `cg` | string | Shower complex/group code |
| `parent_body` | string | Identified parent body (comet or asteroid) |
| `remarks` | string | Additional notes |
| `ote` | string | OTE classification flag |
| `references` | string | Literature reference |

## Quick stats

- **2,163** records across **1,031** unique showers
- **108** IAU-established showers
- **371** records with identified parent body

## Usage

```python
from datasets import load_dataset

ds = load_dataset("juliensimon/iau-meteor-showers", split="train")
df = ds.to_pandas()

# All established showers (primary record only)
established = df[(df["is_established"] == True) & (df["ad_no"] == 0)]

# Major annual showers sorted by geocentric velocity
majors = established[established["activity_type"] == "annual"].sort_values(
"geocentric_velocity_kms", ascending=False
)

# Showers with known parent bodies
with_parent = df[df["parent_body"].notna()][["shower_name", "parent_body", "iau_no"]].drop_duplicates("iau_no")

# Orbital elements of the Perseids (all analyses)
perseids = df[df["code"] == "PER"][["references", "semi_major_axis_au", "eccentricity", "inclination_deg"]]
```

## Data source

[IAU Meteor Data Center](https://www.ta3.sk/IAUC22DB/MDC2022/),
maintained by the IAU Commission F1 (Meteors, Meteoroids and Interplanetary Dust).
Reference: Jopek T.J., Kanamori T., "IAU Meteor Data Center — the shower database"
(Planetary and Space Science, 2019).

## Update schedule

Static dataset — rebuilt manually when the IAU MDC publishes annual updates.

## Related datasets

- [neo-close-approaches](https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/neo-close-approaches) — Near-Earth object close approaches from NASA JPL
- [fireball-events](https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/fireball-events) — NASA/JPL fireball and bolide events

## Pipeline

Source code: [juliensimon/space-datasets](https://github.com/juliensimon/space-datasets)

## Citation

```bibtex
@dataset{iau_meteor_showers,
author = {Simon, Julien},
title = {IAU Meteor Shower Database},
year = {2026},
publisher = {Hugging Face},
url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/iau-meteor-showers},
note = {Based on IAU Meteor Data Center shower database, maintained by IAU Commission F1}
}
```

## License

[CC-BY-4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)