README.md

---
license: cc0-1.0
pretty_name: "Meteorite Database"
language:
  - en
description: >-
  Known meteorites catalogued in Wikidata, including mass, classification,
  fall date, country of recovery, and geographic coordinates.
  1,180 meteorites with metadata sourced from the community-curated
  Wikidata knowledge base.
size_categories:
  - 1K<n<10K
task_categories:
  - tabular-classification
tags:
  - space
  - planetary-science
  - meteorites
  - wikidata
  - open-data
  - tabular-data
  - parquet
configs:
  - config_name: default
    default: true
    data_files:
      - split: train
        path: data/meteorites.parquet
---

# Meteorite Database

*Part of the [Planetary Science Datasets](https://huggingface.co/collections/juliensimon/planetary-science-datasets-69c2d4683bd6a66c34fb4af2) collection on Hugging Face.*

Catalogue of **1,180** known meteorites sourced from [Wikidata](https://www.wikidata.org/),
covering mass, classification, fall date, country of recovery, and geographic coordinates.

## Dataset description

Meteorites are extraterrestrial rocks that survive passage through Earth's atmosphere and
reach the surface. They are classified by mineralogy and petrology (e.g., chondrites,
achondrites, iron meteorites) and recorded either as *falls* (witnessed descent) or
*finds* (recovered without observation).

This dataset aggregates Wikidata entries for all entities of type Q60186 (meteorite), pulling
structured properties including mass (P2067), fall/discovery date (P585/P575), country (P17),
coordinates (P625), and mineralogical class (via P31 subclass hierarchy). It complements NASA and Meteoritical Society
databases with Wikidata's multilingual, cross-linked knowledge graph.

## Schema

| Column | Type | Description |
|--------|------|-------------|
| `wikidata_id` | string | Wikidata entity ID (e.g. Q1029) |
| `name` | string | Meteorite name |
| `fall_date` | string | Date of fall or recovery (YYYY-MM-DD) |
| `mass_g` | float | Mass in grams |
| `classification` | string | Mineralogical/petrological classification |
| `country` | string | Country of recovery |
| `latitude` | float | Recovery latitude (decimal degrees) |
| `longitude` | float | Recovery longitude (decimal degrees) |

## Quick stats

- **1,180** meteorites total
- **368** with recorded mass
- **415** with geographic coordinates
- **125** with classification
- **55** countries of recovery
- Heaviest: Allende meteorite (2,000,000 g)
- Top countries: United States (39), Australia (13), Argentina (10), Germany (10), France (9)
- Top classifications: iron meteorite (21), chondrite (17), H chondrite (17), L chondrite (11), ordinary chondrite (11)

## Usage

```python
from datasets import load_dataset

ds = load_dataset("juliensimon/meteorite-database", split="train")
df = ds.to_pandas()

# Heaviest meteorites
print(df.nlargest(10, "mass_g")[["name", "mass_g", "country", "classification"]])

# Meteorites by country
print(df["country"].value_counts().head(10))

# Meteorites with coordinates (mappable)
mappable = df.dropna(subset=["latitude", "longitude"])
print(f"{len(mappable):,} meteorites with coordinates")

# Filter by classification
chondrites = df[df["classification"].str.contains("chondrite", case=False, na=False)]
print(f"{len(chondrites):,} chondrites")
```

## Data source

[Wikidata](https://www.wikidata.org/) SPARQL endpoint. Meteorites identified via
property P31 (instance of) = Q60186 (meteorite). Data is community-curated and
cross-referenced with the [Meteoritical Bulletin Database](https://www.lpi.usra.edu/meteor/).

## Update schedule

Quarterly (January, April, July, October). Run manually to capture interim additions.

## Related datasets

- [impact-craters](https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/impact-craters) -- Earth impact crater database
- [fireballs](https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/fireball-bolide-events) -- NASA fireball and bolide events

## Pipeline

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

## Support

If you find this dataset useful, please give it a ❤️ on the [dataset page](https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/meteorite-database) and share feedback in the Community tab! Also consider giving a ⭐️ to the [space-datasets](https://github.com/juliensimon/space-datasets) repo.

## Citation

```bibtex
@dataset{meteorite_database,
  author = {Simon, Julien},
  title = {Meteorite Database},
  year = {2026},
  publisher = {Hugging Face},
  url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/meteorite-database},
  note = {Sourced from Wikidata (CC0)}
}
```

## License

[CC0-1.0](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) (Wikidata content is public domain)