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 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

Column	Type	Description	Sample	Null %
toi_id	int64	TESS 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_id	2876	0.0%
toi_prefix	int64	TOI designation number (e.g. 175.01); format is TIC_ID.candidate_number; additional candidates from the same star increment the decimal (.01, .02, ...)	3131	0.0%
disposition	str	TESS 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 Planet	PC	0.0%
tmag	float64	Host 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 precision	13.1643	0.0%
ra_str	str	Right ascension of the host star in sexagesimal notation (HH:MM:SS.ss); provided for human-readable reference alongside the numeric ra_deg	14h35m16.88s	0.0%
ra_deg	float64	ICRS J2000.0 right ascension of the host star in degrees (0-360)	218.820321	0.0%
dec_str	str	Declination of the host star in sexagesimal notation (+/-DD:MM:SS.s); provided for human-readable reference alongside the numeric dec_deg	-25d03m21.52s	0.0%
dec_deg	float64	ICRS J2000.0 declination of the host star in degrees (-90 to +90)	-25.055977	0.0%
period_days	float64	Orbital 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 detections	2.6274574	1.3%
period_err_upper	float64	Upper 1-sigma uncertainty on orbital period in days; null when period itself is null	6.1e-06	1.7%
period_err_lower	float64	Lower 1-sigma uncertainty on orbital period in days (negative value); null when period itself is null	-6.1e-06	1.7%
transit_depth_ppm	float64	Transit 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 ppm	21660.0	0.0%
radius_earth	float64	Planet 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: >7	18.5088	6.5%
radius_err_upper	float64	Upper 1-sigma uncertainty on planet radius in Earth radii; null when radius itself is null	0.651789	20.5%
radius_err_lower	float64	Lower 1-sigma uncertainty on planet radius in Earth radii (negative value); null when radius itself is null	-0.651789	20.5%
equilibrium_temp_k	float64	Estimated equilibrium temperature of the planet in Kelvin assuming zero albedo; derived from stellar luminosity and orbital distance; null if stellar parameters unavailable	1538.0	4.0%
created_date	str	ISO date when the TOI entry was first created in the TESS TOI catalog; tracks when the candidate was initially flagged by the TESS pipeline	2021-06-04 13:54:14	0.0%

Quick stats

• 7,931 TOI entries
• 726 confirmed planets (CP)
• 1,242 false positives (FP)
• 7,419 with radius estimates

Usage

from datasets import load_dataset

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

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

• juliensimon/nasa-exoplanets

• juliensimon/neo-close-approaches

• juliensimon/pulsar-catalog

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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{tess_toi_candidates,
  title = {TESS Objects of Interest (TOI) Planet Candidates},
  author = {juliensimon},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/tess-toi-candidates},
  publisher = {Hugging Face}
}

License

CC-BY-4.0