High-Level Project Summary
When the solar wind breaks free from the sun and runs towards the earth, it brings us beautiful auroras. However, not everyone has the opportunity to see it around the world. Therefore, we created the Aurora Generator that integrated NASA's Parker Solar Probe data. Our application is designed to make it easy for everyone to visualize and experience the changes in solar wind. Users can explore auroras of different appearances by freely adjusting the date/location, atmospheric composition, or solar wind intensity.
Link to Final Project
Link to Project "Demo"
Detailed Project Description
What exactly does it do?
The solar wind may sound familiar, and most people may think it has nothing to do with their lives, but the solar wind affects the earth in a big way. Our website visualizes the data of solar wind from the Parker Solar Probe. We have simplified the complex data and made it possible for the user to adjust all parameters using a panel on the website. This project leads people into science, increasing public understanding of the many spacecraft currently exploring the sun and generating interest in astronomy, like the relationship between solar winds and auroras.
How does it work?
When the users land at the site, the page will display the highest saturation and most colorful aurora. Users can adjust the parameters by using the sliders and buttons in the list in the left column. Through collecting seven days of historical and real-time data, the website shows users different faces of the aurora. Furthermore, users are welcome to choose the location of their choice, such as the Northern Lights in Russia or the Southern Lights in South Australia. Finally, enjoy the "simulated aurora animation" we developed in collaboration with our users.
What benefits does it have?
Everyone has heard stories about the aurora, but not everyone gets the chance to explore its beauty. It provides the public with the simplest way to understand auroras and solar wind and shows the molecules in the atmosphere that affect the color of the aurora and how they disturb the sky. These have increased public awareness of solar probes and influenced people's interest in astronomy.
What do you hope to achieve?
We hope people in any role can have barrier-free connections to NASA and space. Through a user-friendly interface, people worldwide can see, hear or feel the importance of solar wind. More importantly, it can help those who do not have access to complex data or have no background in this area to learn easily.
What tools, coding languages, hardware, or software did you use to develop your project?
- NASA POWER API Service - Read or obtain and integrate the data we need in our applications
- Figma - Design the application flow
- Visual Studio Code - Used as the primary development tool.
- GitHub - Version control and collaboration tools
- Kaggle - Data integration tool and platform
- MySQL - Database application for storing and applying data
- PHP - The primary back-end development language
- JavaScript - Main development language for front-end animation
- CSS - Front-end page design and animation development programming language
- Illustrator - The main design authoring tool
Space Agency Data
We use the KP value to visualize the intensity of the aurora. The given file "NOAA-estimated-planetary-k-index-1-minute.json" allowed us to retrieve the real-time K index. Although the figure is sufficient to understand the possibility of seeing the aurora, it would be fascinating if there's an intuitive way to make people understand the relationship between the solar wind and aurora better. The data will provide the current Kp value and visually simulate the intensity of the aurora.
Furthermore, we set up the scheduled script on the server to auto-save the hourly data from API so that we can record the current value for future use. In the datasets, we collect the Bz values from solar-wind-mag-field.json, the windspeed values from solar-wind-speed.json, and the KP values from NOAA-estimated-planetary-k-index-1-minute.json.
Hackathon Journey
We were already interested in hackathons, and the theme of this challenge happened to be space-related, which is always an area we want to know more about. In evaluating the topic and the group's skills, we chose "creative data display with the parker solar probe" because this often happens to us in Canada. It would be great if we could bring friends or people in other countries to see the aurora and understand the effects of solar wind. During the development of this project, we have learned:
- How solar wind affects the Earth
- The formation of the auroras
- Timely completion of the project (even in a short time)
- Version control
- Communication and assembly of team members
- Always have a backup plan
Thus, we have also faced many challenges and frustrations, such as doubting ourselves when we can't figure out the solutions. With the help of online resources and friends, we overcame all obstacles and broke through one level after another; finally, we completed the project faster than we expected. Thank you to our friends who helped us along the way and the fruits of our hard work.
References
- Garner, R. (2017, May 30). Parker Solar Probe. NASA. Retrieved October 2, 2022, from https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/parker-solar-probe
- Martin, G. (n.d.). Northern Lights. CodePen Home Northern Lights. Retrieved October 2, 2022, from https://codepen.io/jhereg00/pen/JKbQyR
- Homepage: NOAA / NWS space weather prediction center. Homepage | NOAA / NWS Space Weather Prediction Center. (n.d.). Retrieved October 2, 2022, from https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/
Tags
#solarwind, #nasadata, #sun, #solar, #impact, #data, #collaboration, #teamwork, #javascript, #mysql, #kaggle, #parker, #probe, #aurora