juliensimon/neowise-asteroid-properties

NEOWISE Asteroid Diameters and Albedos

Part of the Orbital Mechanics Datasets collection on Hugging Face.

Physical properties of 183,449 asteroids derived from WISE/NEOWISE infrared observations, spanning main-belt asteroids, NEOs, Hildas, Jupiter Trojans, Centaurs, irregular satellites, and ambiguous objects. Includes effective spherical diameters, visible and infrared geometric albedos, and NEATM thermal beaming parameters.

Dataset description

The WISE (Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) and NEOWISE missions observed over 164,000 minor planets at thermal infrared wavelengths (3.4--22 microns). Thermal model fits to these observations yield diameter and albedo estimates that are independent of visible-light assumptions. This dataset combines all published NEOWISE diameter/albedo tables from the PDS Small Bodies Node (V2.0), covering observations from January 2010 through December 2016.

Each record represents a single thermal-model fit for one object. The fit_code column indicates which parameters were allowed to vary: D=diameter, V=visible albedo, B=beaming parameter (or F=fast-rotating model), I=infrared albedo.

Schema

Column	Type	Description
object_id	string	Primary identifier (asteroid number, satellite ID, or provisional designation)
asteroid_number	Int64	IAU asteroid catalog number (null for unnumbered/satellites)
prov_desig	string	Provisional designation (null if none)
comet_desig	string	Comet designation for dual-nature objects (null if none)
mpc_packed_name	string	MPC packed-format designation
population	string	Dynamical population: main_belt, neo, hilda, jupiter_trojan, centaur, irregular_satellite, ambiguous, fixed_diameter
absolute_mag	float64	Absolute H magnitude used as input to thermal fit
slope_param	float64	G slope parameter for photometric phase correction
mean_jd	float64	Mean Julian Date of observations used for fitting
n_w1	Int64	Number of W1 (3.4 um) band measurements used
n_w2	Int64	Number of W2 (4.6 um) band measurements used
n_w3	Int64	Number of W3 (12 um) band measurements used
n_w4	Int64	Number of W4 (22 um) band measurements used
fit_code	string	4-char code: D=diameter, V=vis albedo, B=beaming/F=FRM, I=IR albedo, -=fixed
diameter_km	float64	Best-fit effective spherical diameter (km)
diameter_err_km	float64	1-sigma diameter uncertainty (km)
v_albedo	float64	Visible geometric albedo (best-fit or assumed)
v_albedo_err	float64	1-sigma visible albedo uncertainty
ir_albedo	float64	Infrared geometric albedo (best-fit or assumed)
ir_albedo_err	float64	1-sigma infrared albedo uncertainty
beaming_param	float64	NEATM thermal beaming parameter eta
beaming_param_err	float64	1-sigma beaming parameter uncertainty
stacked_flag	string	"S" if fit used co-added images on predicted position
reference	string	Short reference code for original publication
notes	string	Flags: OrbChange, NoOrb, BrokenLink (null if none)

Quick stats

• 183,449 objects across 8 dynamical populations
• 178,883 main-belt asteroids
• 1,523 near-Earth objects
• 1,860 Jupiter Trojans
• 182,002 objects with measured visible albedo
• Median diameter: 4.3 km | Median V-albedo: 0.075

Usage

from datasets import load_dataset

ds = load_dataset("juliensimon/neowise-asteroid-properties", split="train")
df = ds.to_pandas()

# Albedo distribution by population
df.groupby("population")["v_albedo"].describe()

# Large dark asteroids (low albedo, big diameter)
dark_big = df[(df["v_albedo"] < 0.05) & (df["diameter_km"] > 100)]

# NEOs with measured properties
neos = df[df["population"] == "neo"].sort_values("diameter_km", ascending=False)

# Diameter vs albedo scatter
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
sample = df.dropna(subset=["diameter_km", "v_albedo"])
plt.scatter(sample["diameter_km"], sample["v_albedo"], s=0.5, alpha=0.3)
plt.xscale("log")
plt.xlabel("Diameter (km)")
plt.ylabel("Visible Albedo")

Data source

PDS Small Bodies Node — NEOWISE Diameters and Albedos V2.0

Based on observations by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and its NEOWISE reactivation mission. See Mainzer et al. (2011), Masiero et al. (2011, 2014, 2017), Grav et al. (2012), Bauer et al. (2013), Nugent et al. (2015, 2016).

Pipeline

Source code: juliensimon/space-datasets

Citation

@dataset{neowise_asteroid_properties,
  author = {Simon, Julien},
  title = {NEOWISE Asteroid Diameters and Albedos},
  year = {2026},
  publisher = {Hugging Face},
  url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/neowise-asteroid-properties},
  note = {Based on WISE/NEOWISE data from the PDS Small Bodies Node, Mainzer et al.}
}

License

CC-BY-4.0