Minor Planet Physical Properties Catalogue – Asteroid Database
The MP3C catalogue
- Version: 3.3.3-beta.2 (2026-04-29)
- 1,536,535 small bodies
- 6,393,554 measured properties
- 3,531 distinct bibliographic sources
MP3C
The Minor Planet Physical Properties Catalogue (MP3C) collects and consolidates in a single database, properties of small bodies published in different places.
MP3C is the first and only relational database of asteroids, easily accessible without training needed.
MP3C enables the detailed characterisation of one or thousands of objects at one go!
It currently offers a web interface to different types of queries such as search for a body “ID card” with our best estimates of its properties, search for all measurements known for that body, or filtering on all small bodies and all measurements by various criteria. Individual measurements are provided with their bibliographic reference. Most results can be exported as raw tabular text files easy to import in various software.To query the database, simply choose a type of search in the top “Search” menu or enter an asteroid in the search bar.
Acknowledgements
If you use MP3C to prepare a publication, please add in the acknowledgments:
“This work is based on data provided by the Minor Planet Physical Properties Catalogue (MP3C) of the Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur, and the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leicester”.
We maintain here a list of publications that have used MP3C.
Team
MP3C is a service developed, hosted and maintained at the Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur, as part of the “Action Nationale d'Observation” INSU ANO5.
It is also hosted and maintained by the Hard Rocks team of the School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester.
The MP3C team members are: Marco Delbo (PI, supervision), Thomas J. Dyer (developer), Chrysa Avdellidou (data provider, supervision), Guillaume Verbiese (developer), Nicolas Bruot (former developer), Dimitrios Athanasopoulos (data provider).
Credits
MP3C is supported by the Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur (OCA), through the DOMINO expertise center, and the Institut national des sciences de l'univers (INSU) of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) through the ASOV-France project (Action Spécifique Observatoire Virtuel), the Ministère de l'Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche, and the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR, ORIGINS project). MP3C is also supported by the University of Leicester and the Leverhulme Trust (UK).
MP3C is based on tools and protocols, developed thanks to the efforts of the international astronomical community, through the International Virtual Observatory alliance (IVOA), which led to the construction of the Virtual Observatory (VO). We are thankful, in particular, for the technical and human assistance brought by the European Virtual Observatory (EURO-VO) project and the Centre de Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS).