---
license: cc0-1.0
pretty_name: "Astronomer Database"
language:
  - en
description: "A comprehensive database of astronomers throughout history, sourced from Wikidata.  From ancient stargazers to modern astrophysicists, this dataset captures the lives and work of astronomers across th"
task_categories:
  - tabular-classification
tags:
  - space
  - astronomy
  - astronomers
  - wikidata
  - open-data
  - tabular-data
  - parquet
size_categories:
  - 10K<n<100K
configs:
  - config_name: default
    data_files:
      - split: train
        path: data/astronomers.parquet
    default: true
---

# Astronomer Database


<div align="center">
  <img src="banner.jpg" alt="Blue Marble — high-definition image of Earth from space" width="400">
  <p><em>Credit: NASA/GSFC/Suomi NPP</em></p>
</div>


*Part of a [dataset collection](https://huggingface.co/collections/juliensimon/space-essentials-69cbafd7ea046a10eff11405) on Hugging Face.*

## Dataset description

A comprehensive database of astronomers throughout history, sourced from Wikidata.

From ancient stargazers to modern astrophysicists, this dataset captures the lives and work of astronomers across the ages. It spans from historical figures like Galileo Galilei and Johannes Kepler to contemporary researchers studying gravitational waves, exoplanets, and the large-scale structure of the universe.

The dataset includes birth/death dates, sex, nationality, employer history (universities, observatories, research institutions), awards received (Nobel Prize, etc.), and fields of work (cosmology, planetary science, stellar physics, etc.). This enables historical analysis of the astronomy profession, diversity-in-STEM research, and bibliometric studies of scientific communities.

Sourced from Wikidata's structured knowledge base (property P106=Q11063 for occupation: astronomer), which is maintained by the Wikipedia/Wikidata community and updated continuously.


This dataset is suitable for **tabular classification** tasks.

## Schema

| Column | Type | Description | Sample | Null % |
|--------|------|-------------|--------|--------|
| `wikidata_id` | str | Wikidata entity ID (e.g. 'Q935' for Galileo Galilei); resolves to https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q935 — links to full biographical and bibliographic data including publications, awards, and institutional affiliations | Q4540405 | 0.0% |
| `name` | string | Full name in English as recorded in Wikidata (Latin transliteration for non-Latin scripts) | 'Abd al-'Aziz al-Wafa'i | 0.0% |
| `birth_date` | str | Date of birth in ISO 8601 format (YYYY-MM-DD); null for ancient or medieval astronomers whose birth year is uncertain, and occasionally for modern astronomers with private records | 1408-01-01 | 23.3% |
| `death_date` | str | Date of death in ISO 8601 format (YYYY-MM-DD); null for living astronomers | 1471-01-01 | 49.1% |
| `sex` | string | Recorded biological sex; values: 'male', 'female'; null if not recorded in Wikidata | male | 4.6% |
| `nationality` | string | Country of primary professional affiliation or citizenship (e.g. 'United States', 'Germany'); uses full English country name; may differ from country of birth | Egypt | 33.7% |
| `employers` | string | Universities, observatories, and research institutes where the astronomer has worked, semicolon-separated (e.g. 'Harvard University; Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory'); null if no employer is recorded in Wikidata | Harvard University | 54.5% |
| `awards` | string | Honours and prizes received, semicolon-separated (e.g. 'Nobel Prize in Physics; Kavli Prize'); null if no awards are recorded in Wikidata | Presidential Early Career Award for S... | 79.0% |
| `fields_of_work` | string | Primary research specializations, semicolon-separated (e.g. 'astrophysics; cosmology; stellar astronomy'); drawn from Wikidata property P101; null if not categorized | astronomy; mathematics | 74.1% |
| `birth_year` | Int64 | Integer year extracted from birth_date; enables era-based filtering (e.g. pre-telescopic vs. modern) when full date is unavailable; null only if birth date is entirely unknown | 1408 | 24.1% |

## Quick stats

- **11,755** astronomers from **268** countries
- **9,789** male, **1,415** female
- **3,043** with recorded fields of work
- **2,473** with recorded awards
- Top nationalities: United States (1,565), Germany (565), France (556), United Kingdom (362), Italy (280)

## Usage

```python
from datasets import load_dataset

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

```python
from datasets import load_dataset

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

# Astronomers by nationality
print(df["nationality"].value_counts().head(10))

# Female astronomers
female = df[df["sex"] == "female"]
print(f"{len(female):,} female astronomers")

# Astronomers by field
cosmologists = df[df["fields_of_work"].str.contains("cosmology", case=False, na=False)]
print(f"{len(cosmologists):,} cosmologists")

# Award winners
nobel = df[df["awards"].str.contains("Nobel", na=False)]
print(f"{len(nobel):,} Nobel Prize recipients")

# Era distribution
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
df.dropna(subset=["birth_year"]).hist("birth_year", bins=50)
plt.xlabel("Birth Year")
plt.ylabel("Count")
plt.title("Astronomers by Birth Year")
plt.show()
```

## Data source

https://www.wikidata.org/

## Related datasets

- [juliensimon/astronaut-database](https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/astronaut-database)

- [juliensimon/observatory-database](https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/observatory-database)

> If you find this dataset useful, please consider [giving it a like](https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/astronomer-database) on Hugging Face. It helps others discover it.

## About the author

Created by [Julien Simon](https://julien.org) — AI Operating Partner at Fortino Capital. Part of the [Space Datasets](https://julien.org/datasets) collection.

## Citation

```bibtex
@dataset{astronomer_database,
  title = {Astronomer Database},
  author = {juliensimon},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/astronomer-database},
  publisher = {Hugging Face}
}
```

## License

[CC0-1.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)