Coronal Mass Affection

Universal Event | Creative Data Display with the Parker Solar Probe

Awards & Nominations

Coronal Mass Affection has received the following awards and nominations. Way to go!

Global Nominee

Solar Wind Watch

High-Level Project Summary

I developed a web app which visualizes the near real-time solar wind in a novel and easily understandable way. The solar wind is visualized as a particle simulation, and simple, colored gauges are given to indicate the severity of the current solar wind speed and density. The speed, density, and brightness of the particles in the simulation vary according to the current solar wind speed, density, and temperature, respectively. The challenge was solved (for solar wind data) by presenting solar wind data in a way understandable to the public and easily accessible to those with access to the internet.

Link to Final Project

https://github.com/TrestanSimon/SolarWindWatch

Link to Project "Demo"

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1d4hmjTXj21Y-tqXMVYkKD314XLszcu_fUCynfo7XHAM/edit?usp=sharing

Detailed Project Description

Solar Wind Watch is a web application written in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript that visualizes near real-time solar wind data using a particle simulation and intuitive gauges. Data is obtained from DSCOVR and is updated every minute. The particle simulation uses JavaScript's canvas functionality to move small "particles" across the page. These particles are influenced by Earth's magnetosphere, which is also present in the simulation, and get deflected in a similar manner to how they would in reality (neglecting 3D and spiraling motions). Additionally, the speed and density of these particles is linked to the solar wind speed and density data from DSCOVR. Solar wind temperature data is visualized a little differently; it is linked to the brightness of the particles. The hotter the solar wind, the brighter the particles.

The gauges in the simulation were created using gauge.js and display the solar wind density and speed (temperature is neglected as it is not as important to Earth-related space weather effects). The gauges use colors ranging from green to red in order to indicate whether the current solar wind speed or density is in the normal range or is more severe. The shapes of these gauges were chosen to resemble speedometers, a tool that many are already familiar with, in order to conceptually link the speed of a car to the speed of the solar wind.

This application was written on a PC using Visual Studio Code to write the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and using Firefox to test the application.

Space Agency Data

I used solar wind data from the DSCOVR mission, which was a joint operation between NASA, NOAA, and USAF. In particular, I used the solar wind density, speed, and temperature data that are recorded every minute by DSCOVR. This data was retrieved from NOAA in JSON form.

I used this data to vary parameters in the solar wind particle simulation in accordance with the data I fetched.

This data inspired this project as I was wondering how I could explain this information to my parents and peers who do not have experience with space weather- and solar wind-related topics.

Hackathon Journey

My Space Apps experience is probably the most fun I have had this past year. I went into this knowing very little about programming in JavaScript and came out knowing a lot more than I had initially anticipated. Although I would have liked to add more functionality to my application, I am overall pleased with the results.

I decided to choose this challenge because I am very passionate about both STEM outreach and the Sun.

I would like to thank my parents.

References

Tools:

Visual Studio Code (for programming)
Firefox (for testing)

Code:

jQuery (for retrieving JSON data)
gauge.js (for speed and density gauges)

Data:

DSCOVR solar wind data