juliensimon/iau-meteor-showers

IAU Meteor Shower Database

Credit: NASA/ESA

Part of a dataset collection on Hugging Face.

Dataset description

The complete IAU Meteor Data Center shower catalogue with radiant coordinates, geocentric velocities, orbital elements, and parent body identifications.

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.

Meteor showers occur when Earth passes through a stream of debris shed by a comet or, less commonly, an asteroid along its orbit. The radiant -- the apparent point on the sky from which shower meteors diverge -- is determined by the intersection geometry of Earth's orbit with the meteoroid stream. The geocentric velocity depends on the encounter geometry and the stream's own orbital velocity: head-on encounters with retrograde streams (like the Perseids, from comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle) produce fast meteors at 59 km/s, while overtaking encounters with prograde streams (like the Taurids) yield slower meteors near 27 km/s. The radiant position drifts daily as Earth's motion changes the apparent approach direction, captured by the ra_daily_motion and dec_daily_motion columns.

The orbital elements of each shower constrain the identity of its parent body. Established parent-shower associations are well-determined for major showers (e.g., 1P/Halley for the Eta Aquariids and Orionids, 21P/Giacobini-Zinner for the Draconids), but many working-list showers lack confirmed parents. The solar longitude at peak activity provides a more precise timing reference than calendar date, as it accounts for the irregularities of Earth's elliptical orbit. Multiple records per IAU shower number reflect independent analyses using different observational techniques (visual, video, radar), each contributing orbital element solutions with varying precision and sample sizes recorded in the n_meteors column.

Schema

Column	Type	Description	Sample	Null %
lp	Int32	Sequential record number	1	0.0%
iau_no	Int32	IAU shower number (unique per shower)	1	2.4%
ad_no	Int32	Additional solution number (0 = primary, 1+ = alternate analyses)	0	0.0%
code	object	Three-letter IAU code (e.g. PER, GEM, LEO)	CAP	2.4%
status_code	Int16	Numeric status flag (1=established, 0=working list, negative=issues)	1	0.0%
submission_date	object	Date submitted to MDC	2006-mm-dd	0.0%
shower_name	object	Full shower name-designation	alpha-Capricornids	0.0%
activity_type	object	Activity pattern (annual, variable, etc.)	annual	0.0%
sol_lon_begin_deg	float64	Solar longitude at start of detectable activity (degrees, 0°=vernal equinox, increases ~1°/day); more stable than calendar date for inter-annual comparison	123.7	36.6%
sol_lon_end_deg	float64	Solar longitude at end of detectable activity (degrees); activity window = sol_lon_end − sol_lon_begin	138.7	36.7%
sol_lon_peak_deg	float64	Solar longitude at peak activity (degrees); the most reproducible parameter for scheduling observations year to year	128.9	0.5%
ra_deg	float64	Right ascension of the radiant — the sky point from which meteors appear to diverge — ICRS J2000.0 (degrees, 0–360); drifts during the shower due to Earth's orbital motion	306.6	0.6%
dec_deg	float64	Declination of the radiant, ICRS J2000.0 (degrees, -90 to +90); showers with dec < −30° are poorly observable from northern mid-latitudes	-8.2	0.6%
ra_daily_motion	float64	Rate of change of radiant right ascension during the shower (degrees/day); caused by Earth's changing viewing geometry	0.54	33.0%
dec_daily_motion	float64	Rate of change of radiant declination during the shower (degrees/day)	0.25	33.4%
geocentric_velocity_kms	float64	Meteor entry speed relative to Earth (km/s); range ~11–72 km/s; slow meteors leave short, faint trains; fast meteors produce persistent trains and fireballs	22.2	1.3%
sun_centered_ecliptic_lon_deg	float64	Ecliptic longitude of the radiant in a Sun-centered frame (degrees); invariant of Earth's position, useful for orbital analysis	306.91	0.0%
sun_centered_ecliptic_lat_deg	float64	Ecliptic latitude of the radiant in a Sun-centered frame (degrees)	178.01	0.0%
ecliptic_lat_deg	float64	Ecliptic latitude of the radiant in standard (Earth-centered) ecliptic coordinates (degrees)	10.67	0.0%
theta_deg	float64	Angular distance from the apex of Earth's way (degrees); used in the Southworth-Hawkins D-criterion for stream association	88.04	0.1%
phi_deg	float64	Angular distance from the ecliptic plane (degrees); used in stream orbital similarity calculations	259.32	0.1%
flags	object	MDC data quality or provenance flags (e.g. "R" for refined solution); null if no flag	R	52.2%
semi_major_axis_au	float64	Semi-major axis of the meteoroid stream's mean orbit (AU); null for hyperbolic or unresolved orbits	2.618	22.5%
perihelion_distance_au	float64	Perihelion distance of the stream orbit (AU); must be ≤1 AU for Earth-crossing showers	0.602	7.8%
eccentricity	float64	Orbital eccentricity of the stream (0=circular, 1=parabolic); most showers: 0.7–1.0	0.768	13.0%
arg_perihelion_deg	float64	Argument of perihelion of the stream orbit (degrees, 0–360)	266.67	7.9%
ascending_node_deg	float64	Longitude of ascending node of the stream orbit (degrees, 0–360); approximately equals the solar longitude at peak when node ≈ Earth's orbit	128.9	8.0%
inclination_deg	float64	Inclination of the stream orbit to the ecliptic (degrees, 0–180); >90° indicates retrograde stream	7.68	7.5%
n_meteors	Int32	Number of individual meteor observations used to derive this radiant/orbit solution; null if not reported	36	0.1%
group_no	Int32	IAU stream group number linking related showers in the same complex	0	0.0%
cg	object	Shower complex or group code (e.g. "JFC" for Jupiter-family comet streams)	00	0.0%
parent_body	object	Identified parent comet or asteroid (e.g. "109P/Swift-Tuttle" for Perseids, "3200 Phaethon" for Geminids); null if parent unknown	169P/NEAT (= 2002 EX12)	82.8%
remarks	object	Free-text notes from the MDC submitter (null if none)	N-?, shower data not found in the pub...	69.8%
ote	object	OTE (Orbital Type) classification flag from the MDC	R	8.2%
references	object	Literature reference(s) for this solution	Jenniskens, 2006	0.0%
status	object	Human-readable status label	established	0.0%
is_established	boolean	True if shower has IAU established status	True	0.0%

Quick stats

• 2,165 records across 1,031 unique showers
• 108 IAU-established showers
• 372 records with identified parent body

Usage

from datasets import load_dataset
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

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
)

# Plot geocentric velocity distribution of established showers
plt.figure(figsize=(10, 5))
plt.hist(established["geocentric_velocity_kms"].dropna(), bins=30, edgecolor="black")
plt.xlabel("Geocentric Velocity (km/s)")
plt.ylabel("Number of Showers")
plt.title("Geocentric Velocity Distribution of IAU Established Meteor Showers")
plt.tight_layout()
plt.show()

# Showers with known parent bodies
with_parent = df[df["parent_body"].notna()][
    ["shower_name", "parent_body", "iau_no"]
].drop_duplicates("iau_no")
print(with_parent.head(20))

Data source

https://www.ta3.sk/IAUC22DB/MDC2022/

Related datasets

• juliensimon/neo-close-approaches

• juliensimon/fireball-bolide-events

Citation

@dataset{iau_meteor_showers,
  title = {IAU Meteor Shower Database},
  author = {juliensimon},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/iau-meteor-showers},
  publisher = {Hugging Face}
}

License

CC-BY-4.0