juliensimon/esa-rosetta-observations

ESA Rosetta Observations

Credit: NASA/ESA

Part of the Solar System Datasets and Planetary Science Datasets collections on Hugging Face.

Complete observation metadata catalog from the ESA Rosetta mission to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko — 8,214,033 observations across 15 instruments.

Dataset description

Rosetta was ESA's groundbreaking mission to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Launched in 2004, it became the first spacecraft to orbit a comet (August 2014) and deployed the Philae lander for the first-ever soft landing on a comet nucleus (November 2014). The mission studied the comet's nucleus, coma, and plasma environment in unprecedented detail over a 2-year escort phase, witnessing the comet's approach to and retreat from the Sun. Rosetta's ROSINA mass spectrometer detected molecular oxygen and glycine (an amino acid) in the coma — findings with profound implications for our understanding of Solar System chemistry and the origin of water and prebiotic molecules on Earth. OSIRIS captured stunning images of 67P's bilobed nucleus revealing active pits, cliffs, and dust jets. The mission concluded with a controlled descent onto the comet surface on September 30, 2016.

This dataset contains the full observation metadata from the ESA Planetary Science Archive (PSA), conforming to the EPN-TAP standard. Each row represents one observation or data granule, with timing, spatial coverage, instrument parameters, and access URLs.

Instruments

• ROSINA: Mass spectrometer suite measuring gas composition of 67P's coma
• OSIRIS: Camera system (NAC + WAC) imaging the comet nucleus and coma
• RPC: Plasma consortium with 5 sensors studying the plasma environment
• ALICE: Ultraviolet spectrograph characterizing coma and surface composition
• COSIMA: Dust mass spectrometer analyzing collected dust grains
• RSI: Radio science instrument probing the comet interior and coma
• MIDAS: Atomic force microscope imaging dust grain morphology at nm scale
• VIRTIS: Visible/infrared imaging spectrometer mapping surface and coma
• NAVCAM: Navigation camera providing wide-field context images
• GIADA: Dust impact detector measuring grain flux and momentum
• SREM: Standard radiation environment monitor
• CONSERT: Radar tomography of the comet nucleus (with Philae)
• MIRO: Microwave spectrometer measuring subsurface temperature and volatile outgassing
• SESAME: Philae surface science package (acoustic, permittivity, dust)
• ROMAP: Philae magnetometer and plasma monitor

Instrument breakdown

• ROSINA: 4,654,393 observations
• OSIRIS: 2,352,819 observations
• RPC: 322,145 observations
• ALICE: 258,704 observations
• COSIMA: 185,045 observations
• RSI: 257,600 observations
• MIDAS: 64,561 observations
• VIRTIS: 47,850 observations
• NAVCAM: 46,568 observations
• GIADA: 7,968 observations
• SREM: 6,563 observations
• CONSERT: 3,248 observations
• MIRO: 2,544 observations
• SESAME: 2,328 observations
• ROMAP: 1,697 observations

Schema (key columns)

Column	Type	Description
granule_uid	string	Unique observation identifier
granule_gid	string	Group identifier
obs_id	string	Observation ID
dataproduct_type	string	Data product type (e.g. spectrum, image, profile)
target_name	string	Target body (67P, etc.)
target_class	string	Target class (comet, etc.)
instrument_name	string	Instrument name
time_min	float64	Observation start time (JD)
time_max	float64	Observation end time (JD)
c1min/c1max	float64	Spatial coordinate 1 range
c2min/c2max	float64	Spatial coordinate 2 range
spectral_range_min/max	float64	Spectral range bounds
processing_level	string	Data processing level
creation_date	string	Data product creation date
access_url	string	URL to access the data product
access_format	string	Data format (e.g. application/x-pds)

The full schema contains up to ~50 columns following the EPN-TAP standard.

Quick stats

• 8,214,033 total observations
• 15 instruments
• 12 distinct targets
• Time span: JD 2451910.5 – 2457662.5

Usage

from datasets import load_dataset

# Load a single instrument (fast, low memory)
rosina = load_dataset("juliensimon/esa-rosetta-observations", "rosina", split="train")
print(f"{len(rosina):,} ROSINA observations")

# Load all instruments at once (14M+ rows, needs significant RAM)
ds = load_dataset("juliensimon/esa-rosetta-observations", split="train")

# Available configs: rosina, osiris, rpc, alice, cosima, virtis, navcam, midas

Data source

ESA Planetary Science Archive — EPN-TAP service at https://psa.esa.int/psa-tap/tap/sync.

Related datasets

• esa-exomars-tgo-observations — ESA ExoMars TGO observation catalog
• esa-mars-express-observations — ESA Mars Express observation catalog
• comets — JPL comet orbital elements

Pipeline

Source code: juliensimon/space-datasets

Support

If you find this dataset useful, please give it a ❤️ on the dataset page and share feedback in the Community tab! Also consider giving a ⭐️ to the space-datasets repo.

Citation

@dataset{rosetta_observations,
  author = {Simon, Julien},
  title = {ESA Rosetta Observations},
  year = {2026},
  publisher = {Hugging Face},
  url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/esa-rosetta-observations},
  note = {Based on ESA Planetary Science Archive (PSA) EPN-TAP service}
}

License

CC-BY-NC-3.0-IGO