juliensimon/ceres-craters-dawn
Ceres Crater Database (Zeilnhofer 2020, Dawn FC2) Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Part of a dataset collection on Hugging Face. Dataset description The most comprehensive catalog of impact craters on dwarf planet Ceres, containing craters with diameter >= 1 km identified from Dawn Framing Camera (FC2) imagery. This database was compiled by M. F. Zeilnhofer and N. G. Barlow (2021) using images from NASA's Dawn spacecraft Framing Camera 2. Every crater >= 1 km in… See the full description on the dataset page: https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/ceres-craters-dawn.
Ceres Crater Database (Zeilnhofer 2020, Dawn FC2)
<div align="center"> <img src="banner.jpg" alt="Dawn spacecraft orbiting Ceres (artist concept)" width="400"> <p><em>Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech</em></p> </div>
Part of a [dataset collection](https://huggingface.co/collections/juliensimon/planetary-science-datasets-69c2d4683bd6a66c34fb4af2) on Hugging Face.
Dataset description
The most comprehensive catalog of impact craters on dwarf planet Ceres, containing craters with diameter >= 1 km identified from Dawn Framing Camera (FC2) imagery.
This database was compiled by M. F. Zeilnhofer and N. G. Barlow (2021) using images from NASA's Dawn spacecraft Framing Camera 2. Every crater >= 1 km in diameter on Ceres was identified and measured, providing positions, diameters, and depth measurements where available.
Ceres occupies a unique position in solar system science as a volatile-rich body that has remained largely intact since the early stages of planetary formation. With a mean diameter of approximately 940 km and a bulk density of about 2.16 g/cm3, Ceres is thought to harbor a substantial water ice component beneath its regolith, and possibly a residual subsurface brine layer. The Dawn spacecraft's orbital observations revealed bright deposits of sodium carbonate and ammonium-bearing minerals in several craters -- most famously in Occator crater -- interpreted as recent or ongoing cryovolcanic activity where brines have migrated to the surface.
The crater population on Ceres provides key constraints on the age and evolution of the asteroid belt. Notably, Ceres has a deficit of large craters (greater than 100 km) compared to predictions from collisional models, suggesting that viscous relaxation of the ice-rich crust has erased large basins over geological time. The depth-to-diameter ratios of Cerean craters are systematically shallower than those on Vesta or the Moon, consistent with a mechanically weak, ice-bearing lithosphere.
This dataset is suitable for tabular classification, tabular regression tasks.
Schema
Quick stats
- 44,594 total craters on Ceres
- Size distribution: 41,379 small, 2,572 medium, 620 large, 23 giant
- Diameter range: 1.00 -- 282.0 km
- 44,440 craters with depth measurements
Usage
from datasets import load_dataset
ds = load_dataset("juliensimon/ceres-craters-dawn", split="train")
df = ds.to_pandas()from datasets import load_dataset
ds = load_dataset("juliensimon/ceres-craters-dawn", split="train")
df = ds.to_pandas()
# Size distribution histogram
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
df["diameter_km"].hist(bins=100, log=True)
plt.xlabel("Diameter (km)")
plt.ylabel("Count")
plt.title("Ceres Crater Size Distribution")
plt.show()
# Map of craters
plt.scatter(df["longitude_deg"], df["latitude_deg"],
s=df["diameter_km"] / 5, alpha=0.3)
plt.xlabel("Longitude (deg)")
plt.ylabel("Latitude (deg)")
plt.title("Ceres Impact Craters (Dawn FC2)")
plt.show()
# Large craters (>50 km)
large = df[df["diameter_km"] > 50].sort_values("diameter_km", ascending=False)
print(f"Craters >50 km: {len(large)}")Data source
https://astrogeology.usgs.gov/search/map/ceresdawnzeilnhofercraterdatabase_2020
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About the author
Created by Julien Simon — AI Operating Partner at Fortino Capital. Part of the Space Datasets collection.
Citation
@dataset{ceres_craters_dawn,
title = {Ceres Crater Database (Zeilnhofer 2020, Dawn FC2)},
author = {Simon, Julien},
year = {2026},
url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/ceres-craters-dawn},
note = {Derived from USGS Astrogeology Science Center, https://astrogeology.usgs.gov/search/map/ceres_dawn_zeilnhofer_crater_database_2020},
publisher = {Hugging Face}
}