Stack Exchange — astronomy.stackexchange.com

The content of astronomy.stackexchange.com (https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/), a Stack Exchange question-and-answer site, as published in the Stack Exchange Data Dump of April 2024 on the Internet Archive. The posts table holds 116,434 rows: 35,836 posts (14,653 questions, 20,328 answers, 425 tag wiki excerpts, 425 tag wikis, 2 posts of type 6 and 3 posts of type 7) and 80,598 comments, written between 24 September 2013 and 31 March 2024. Beside it are 39,348 user accounts, 237,730 votes, 64,722 badges awarded, 590 tags, 118,097 post revisions and 6,552 links between posts. Every answer keeps the question it answers and every comment the post it was written on, so the threads can be rebuilt. The Internet Archive item describes the dump as anonymised; the votes table names the voter in only 562 rows.

#Astronomy#Expertise network#Reputation#Stack exchange data dump

Download data package README Original files as received BibTeX JSONSimilar datasets

Analytics

The interactive network needs JavaScript.

· graph.json

The full graph has 7,452 nodes; this view shows the 1,000-node sample the pipeline drew for display. Node size is centrality, colour is community.

7.5K
Nodes
15.9K
Edges
2.86e-04
Density
76
Components
-0.1225
Assortativity
0.7%
Reciprocity
3.8K
Bridges
Most central nodes
79820.03141
10300.01557
95270.01074
13860.00966
830.00886
2710.00819
341550.00778
154150.00725
25620.00725
314100.00644
Content metrics

116,434 records scored · min–maxmean ± 0.675 σ (the interquartile range if the values are roughly normal)mean

x scoreμ 2.049 ± 4.768
min -13max 177
x view countμ 1.3K ± 4.7K
min 12max 256.4K
x answer countμ 1.388 ± 1.083
min 0max 12
x comment countμ 2.25 ± 2.937
min 0max 29
x favorite count4.2% true
true 4.2%false 95.8%
9.4
Flesch–Kincaid grade
US school grade level
10.1
Automated readability index
Frequent terms
earthsuntimestarstarsmoonquestionlikemasslightanswerplanetblacksolarorbituniversesystemplanetsyearsspacedistanceknowwaydonenergypointthinkholematterdifferentgalaxyobjecttelescopeuserightobjectsneedgravitationalgravitydatasmallfindtimessurfaceskygalaxiesawayjupitermeanpossible
Topic clusters

Topic 0

universe
galaxy
matter
dark
light
expansion
space
energy

Topic 1

telescope
mirror
image
eyepiece
lens
radio
focal
light

Topic 2

time
day
sun
year
latitude
longitude
hour
declination

Topic 3

planet
water
comet
atmosphere
earth
mars
ice
solar

Topic 4

hole
black
horizon
event
mass
neutron
star
radiation

Topic 5

moon
eclipse
sun
lunar
earth
sky
night
day

Topic 6

star
mass
supernova
fusion
element
hydrogen
core
dwarf

Topic 7

question
answer
comment
ask
edit
post
vote
think

Topic 8

astronomy
question
physics
topic
answer
vote
exploration
ask

Topic 9

orbit
planet
orbital
earth
eccentricity
sun
body
circular

Topic 10

value
equation
error
formula
number
magnitude
mean
chi

Topic 11

thank
answer
question
welcome
know
okay
comment
help
Show all 15 topics

Topic 12

moon
tidal
earth
tide
lock
orbit
tidally
rotation

Topic 13

link
answer
paper
reference
add
page
information
site

Topic 14

parallax
distance
star
gaia
magnitude
measure
hipparcos
betelgeuse
Top hashtags
#299
#196
#344
#v26
#423
#history18
#1414
#q13
#solar_system_estimates13
#612
#include11
#newcalculation11
#print11
#earth10
#59
#top9
#78
#84157
#astronomy7
#astropy7

Computed over the full corpus.

Record

Catalog key
stackexchange-astronomy-stackexchange-com
Authors
Stack Exchange, Inc.
Year
2024
Source paper
Stack Exchange Data Dump
License
CC BY-SA 3.0 / 4.0 (by contribution date) (CC-BY-SA-3.0 AND CC-BY-SA-4.0)
Records
131,427
Nodes
7,452
Edges
15,893 (directed)
Nodes are
user (Stack Exchange account)
Edges are
answer collaboration (A answered B's question)
Attributes
nodes have attributes; edges have attributes
Text corpus
question titles, post bodies, comment text, tag names
Languages
en
Collected
2013/2024 (2010s, 2020s)
Tasks
From the graph: link prediction, community detection
Region
Global (inferred: the platform is used worldwide)

Provenance

Originally published at
https://archive.org/details/stackexchange link checked
Original files as received
The source files, unconverted, kept for reference: mirrored on echo.directory on 2026-10-09, 49.0 MB across 1 files. Checksums in MANIFEST.json. For use, start with the data package below.
Data package
Version 1.0.0 of this dataset as an ECHO Data Package: posts (116,434 rows), users (39,348 rows), x_votes (237,730 rows), x_badges (64,722 rows), x_tags (590 rows), x_post_history (118,097 rows), x_post_links (6,552 rows).
Structure
Temporal (timestamped), Node attributes, Text, Threaded conversations

How to cite

BibTeX

@misc{echo2026,
  title  = {ECHO: Exploratory Compendium of Humanity Online},
  author = {Switzer, Braden and Zafarani, Reza},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://echo.directory},
  note   = {Syracuse University}
}

@misc{stackexchange_2024,
  title     = {Stack Exchange Data Dump},
  author    = {{Stack Exchange, Inc.}},
  year      = {2024},
  month     = {apr},
  publisher = {Internet Archive},
  url       = {https://archive.org/details/stackexchange}
}

APA

Switzer, B., & Zafarani, R. (2026). ECHO: Exploratory Compendium of Humanity Online [Data repository]. Syracuse University. https://echo.directory

Stack Exchange, Inc. (2024). Stack Exchange — astronomy.stackexchange.com [Data set]. https://stackexchange-astronomy.echo.directory/

MLA

Switzer, Braden, and Reza Zafarani. ECHO: Exploratory Compendium of Humanity Online. Syracuse University, 2026, echo.directory.

Stack Exchange, Inc. Stack Exchange — astronomy.stackexchange.com. 2024, stackexchange-astronomy.echo.directory/.

BibTeX · RIS · CSL-JSON

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