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juliensimon/tess-toi-candidates

TESS Objects of Interest (TOI) Planet Candidates Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Part of a dataset collection on Hugging Face. Dataset description Planet candidates identified by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), from the NASA Exoplanet Archive TOI catalog. Updated weekly. TESS is a NASA space telescope launched in 2018 that surveys the entire sky for transiting exoplanets. When a star shows periodic brightness dips consistent with a planet… See the full description on the dataset page: https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/tess-toi-candidates.

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Dataset Card

TESS Objects of Interest (TOI) Planet Candidates

<div align="center"> <img src="banner.jpg" alt="Artist concept of the surface of TRAPPIST-1f exoplanet" width="400"> <p><em>Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech</em></p> </div>

Part of a [dataset collection](https://huggingface.co/collections/juliensimon/astronomy-datasets-69c24caf2f17e36128946743) on Hugging Face.

Dataset description

Planet candidates identified by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), from the NASA Exoplanet Archive TOI catalog. Updated weekly.

TESS is a NASA space telescope launched in 2018 that surveys the entire sky for transiting exoplanets. When a star shows periodic brightness dips consistent with a planet crossing in front of it, it is flagged as a TESS Object of Interest (TOI). Each TOI undergoes follow-up observations to determine whether it is a genuine planet, a false positive (e.g., eclipsing binary), or remains an active candidate.

TESS represents a fundamentally different survey strategy from its predecessor Kepler. While Kepler stared at a single patch of sky for four years to find small planets around faint stars, TESS surveys nearly the entire sky in 27-day sectors, optimized for finding planets around the nearest and brightest stars. This design choice means TESS planets are far more amenable to ground-based follow-up: radial velocity mass measurements, atmospheric characterization with JWST, and even direct imaging with next-generation telescopes. The TOI catalog is the primary pipeline output that feeds this follow-up ecosystem.

Each TOI entry carries a disposition assigned by the TESS Follow-up Observing Program Working Group (TFOPWG): CP for confirmed planets that have passed rigorous vetting, FP for false positives ruled out by follow-up observations (commonly background eclipsing binaries or stellar variability), KP for known planets independently discovered, and PC for active planet candidates still awaiting confirmation.

This dataset is suitable for tabular classification tasks.

Schema

ColumnTypeDescriptionSampleNull %
toi_idint64TESS Input Catalog (TIC) integer identifier of the host star; the primary stellar ID in TIC v8; multiple planet candidates from the same star share the same toi_id28760.0%
toi_prefixint64TOI designation number (e.g. 175.01); format is TICID.candidatenumber; additional candidates from the same star increment the decimal (.01, .02, ...)31310.0%
dispositionstrTESS Follow-Up Observing Program Working Group (TFOPWG) disposition after ground-based vetting: 'CP' = Confirmed Planet, 'PC' = Planet Candidate (active), 'APC' = Ambiguous Planet Candidate, 'FP' = False Positive (ruled out), 'KP' = Known PlanetPC0.2%
tmagfloat64Host star brightness in the TESS T-band (~600-1000 nm); similar to but not identical to Cousins I-band; typical range 6-15 for TOI hosts; brighter stars yield better photometric precision13.16430.0%
ra_strstrRight ascension of the host star in sexagesimal notation (HH:MM:SS.ss); provided for human-readable reference alongside the numeric ra_deg14h35m16.88s0.0%
ra_degfloat64ICRS J2000.0 right ascension of the host star in degrees (0-360)218.8203210.0%
dec_strstrDeclination of the host star in sexagesimal notation (+/-DD:MM:SS.s); provided for human-readable reference alongside the numeric dec_deg-25d03m21.52s0.0%
dec_degfloat64ICRS J2000.0 declination of the host star in degrees (-90 to +90)-25.0559770.0%
period_daysfloat64Orbital period in days from the transit fit; null for single-transit events where period cannot be determined; typical range 0.5-100 days for TESS detections2.62745741.4%
period_err_upperfloat64Upper 1-sigma uncertainty on orbital period in days; null when period itself is null6.1e-061.7%
period_err_lowerfloat64Lower 1-sigma uncertainty on orbital period in days (negative value); null when period itself is null-6.1e-061.7%
transit_depth_ppmfloat64Transit depth in parts per million (fractional flux dip x 10^6); typical range 100-50000 ppm; an Earth-sized planet transiting a Sun-like star produces ~84 ppm; giant planets can exceed 10000 ppm21660.00.0%
radius_earthfloat64Planet radius in Earth radii derived from the transit depth and stellar radius; null until stellar parameters are available; sub-Neptunes: 1.5-4, Neptunes: 4-7, giant planets: >718.50886.4%
radius_err_upperfloat64Upper 1-sigma uncertainty on planet radius in Earth radii; null when radius itself is null0.65178919.9%
radius_err_lowerfloat64Lower 1-sigma uncertainty on planet radius in Earth radii (negative value); null when radius itself is null-0.65178919.9%
equilibrium_temp_kfloat64Estimated equilibrium temperature of the planet in Kelvin assuming zero albedo; derived from stellar luminosity and orbital distance; null if stellar parameters unavailable1538.03.9%
created_datestrISO date when the TOI entry was first created in the TESS TOI catalog; tracks when the candidate was initially flagged by the TESS pipeline2021-06-04 13:54:140.0%

Quick stats

  • —8,148 TOI entries
  • —818 confirmed planets (CP)
  • —1,301 false positives (FP)
  • —7,627 with radius estimates

Usage

python
from datasets import load_dataset

ds = load_dataset("juliensimon/tess-toi-candidates", split="train")
df = ds.to_pandas()
python
from datasets import load_dataset

ds = load_dataset("juliensimon/tess-toi-candidates", split="train")
df = ds.to_pandas()

# Confirmed planets
confirmed = df[df["disposition"] == "CP"]
print(f"{len(confirmed):,} confirmed planets")

# Small rocky planets (< 2 Earth radii)
rocky = df[df["radius_earth"] < 2.0].dropna(subset=["radius_earth"])
print(f"{len(rocky):,} candidates with radius < 2 Earth radii")

# Period distribution
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
valid = df.dropna(subset=["period_days"])
plt.hist(valid["period_days"], bins=100, range=(0, 50))
plt.xlabel("Orbital period (days)")
plt.ylabel("Count")
plt.title("TESS TOI Period Distribution")
plt.show()

Data source

https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/

Related datasets

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About the author

Created by Julien Simon — AI Operating Partner at Fortino Capital. Part of the Space Datasets collection.

Citation

bibtex
@dataset{tess_toi_candidates,
  title = {TESS Objects of Interest (TOI) Planet Candidates},
  author = {Simon, Julien},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/tess-toi-candidates},
  note = {Derived from NASA Exoplanet Archive, IPAC/Caltech, https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/},
  publisher = {Hugging Face}
}

License

CC-BY-4.0