High-Level Project Summary
We have developed a web application which helps users visualize from the eyes of Parker Solar Probe as it investigates the Solar winds which are released from the sun. We set out to make the data available in tables which is a black-box to most into something one can understand by playing with it. Based on the time PSP was set out into space, we place user as if they are sitting on the PSP seeing the Sun, visualize the change in magnetic flux density and experience the speed of Solar Winds as PSP moves around the Sun. This is a way to engage children and cunning minds into experiencing why we explore space by presenting it as an interactive game.
Link to Final Project
Link to Project "Demo"
Detailed Project Description
The web application uses the data available from HAPI. It takes the merged data of PSP and the task is to represent most of the data in a visually intuitive way so an amateur can relate to the numbers. Since every data is according to time, it will be the independent value which can be set by the user using a slider. Then according to data we find distance which will decide how big the sun looks to the eyes, solar wind speed which is represented by the particles in the background and magnetic field is represented by number of flux lines. The rest of the data is also presented in a details tab which is toggle-able.
The website isn't responsive and looks best on a 15" PC Display. It doesn't work on mobile.
The benefit of this interactive web-app is to engage casual users and hook them to the science of space. Visualizing the numbers can be very interesting and hope is that while playing with this data, one would be intrigued and end up learning more about Parker Solar Probe and start exploring even more about NASA and other space agencies and instruments too. This will also help in making people understand the use of the probes and missions we humans send out to space by showing them the visual representation of PSP's findings.
The frontend that is the actual visible part is made using ReactJS with the design done using Figma. The data is being stored and accessed through Firestore but we also have a alternat ready-to-use Django backend ready in case we need to host standalone frontend and backend. The data was accessed through NASA's HAPI and then processed using python libraries such as pandas and numpy. Some software tools used for development were VS Code, Google Colab and Figma.
Space Agency Data
There are mainly 2 datasets that were used throughout the project:
- https://cdaweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/hapi/data?id=PSP_COHO1HR_MERGED_MAG_PLASMA&time.min=2018-01-01T00:00:00Z&time.max=2022-03-31T23:00:00Z
- https://wispr.nrl.navy.mil/data/rel/pngs/
1) To gather data taken by Parker Solar Probe versus time, we used the first dataset. It was the core data that we wanted to show the user as the challenge related to soar winds and PSP is one of the only projects out in space studying solar winds.
We analyzed the data and replaced the missing data with the succeeding values in each column because the our data is a type of time series data set and has minor variations so this is the most appropriate way of filling in the missing values. But to prevent misdirection we don't show replaced data and rather display the not available prompt.
2) The WISPR dataset has images taken from the instrument on the PSP and we used it as a secondary way to show the solar winds, that is in the details tab. We show the images which are taken closest to the time set on the slider.
Hackathon Journey
Space Apps hackathon gave as an opportunity to delve into the vast data open to public by various space agencies. It also pushed us to work together in a tight space which made us better at teamwork. We also learned a lot about the Parker Solar Probe and it's instruments, especially the WISPR.
We chose this particular challenge as it allowed us to show sense of an otherwise set of unrelated numbers to any audience irrespective of their knowledge. It gave us an opportunity to make data visualization into a fun game which hopefully gets other audience hooked into space tech.
The major challenge was finding the data from the vast availability and then the absence of such a big chunk of it. Since the PSP Dataset we took was so large (over 37k entries) we needed to write scripts for analysing and manipulating data. The other challenge was keeping data change smooth and fast as the Time Seekbar is continuous.
Overall it was a really fun experience and we had a lot of fun going through it. We are really glad we could participate.
References
Data:
- https://cdaweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/hapi/info?id=PSP_COHO1HR_MERGED_MAG_PLASMA
- https://cdaweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/hapi/data?id=PSP_COHO1HR_MERGED_MAG_PLASMA&time.min=2018-01-01T00:00:00Z&time.max=2022-03-31T23:00:00Z
- https://wispr.nrl.navy.mil/data/rel/pngs/
Tools:
- Firestore
- ReactJS
- Figma
- Django
- Google Colab
Some Reference Code and Documentation:
- Rotating globe: https://codepen.io/adamvictor0012/pen/LQNJdV
- Toggleable button: https://codepen.io/somali_12/pen/YzqEbdp
- React Documentation: https://reactjs.org/docs/getting-started.html
- Firestore Documentation: https://firebase.google.com/docs/firestore
- Django Documentation: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/4.1
- HAPI Documentation: https://cdaweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/hapi
- pandas Documentation: https://pandas.pydata.org/docs/
- Parker Solar Probe: http://parkersolarprobe.jhuapl.edu
Assets:
- Music: https://pixabay.com/music/search/spaceship
- Sun map images taken from google:
Tags
#software#game#creative data visualization#interactive#user friendly#informative#real time