.XYZ File Extension

File used by various chemistry programs, such as TINKER and UniChem; contains a description of a molecule, including the number of atoms, element symbol, and X, Y, and Z coordinates; stored in a plain text format.

While there is no official standard for XYZ files, they still generally contain the same types of data.

NOTE: The ".xyz" extension may also be used as a generic file extension when providing examples, or when the file extension is unknown.

Data file used by Celestia, a free universe visualization and simulation program; stores an ordered list of positions in space and timestamps; specifies the trajectory of a planet, moon, star, or other space entity.

XYZ files are referenced by .SSC catalog files, which store information about universe entities. XYZ files must be saved to a \data\ directory within the directory that the SSC file resides. For example, if galileo.ssc is saved to the \extras-standard\galileo\ directory, then any galileo XYZ files should be stored in the \extras-standard\galileo\data\ directory.