Team Veritas

Miri | Make a Moonquake Map!

Awards & Nominations

Team Veritas has received the following awards and nominations. Way to go!

Global Nominee

Shakesphere

High-Level Project Summary

We have developed a web app to display seismic data on an interactive 3D moon globe. Seismic events are displayed either as a dot or a circle in various sizes according to the magnitude, and plotted to its corresponding coordinate on the real moon. Users can choose to see seismic events within a time range and observe its change in the years. The app can be used for many purposes, whether it is a learning tool for kids or a research tool for studying moonquake clusters. We believe it is important because it can be used to better understand the seismic nature of the moon. Such knowledge will be crucial when humans are to inhabit the moon in the years to come.

Link to Final Project

https://nasa-space-app-hackathone.fantastic-two.repl.co/ThreeJS/moon.html

Link to Project "Demo"

https://youtu.be/bk5P-WxfB2g

Detailed Project Description

WHAT EXACTLY DOES IT DO?

Our solution has the ability to turn complex seismic data into easily understandable graphics. Moonquake events are plotted onto the 3D globe alongside the information like date, time, coordinate, magnitude and images. Users will be able to interact with the globe, learning and having fun at the same time.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

When the user open the web app, they will be greeted with a welcome page and some simple introductions about the tools provided to help users familiarize themselves with the layout. The main page consists of a number of components, the 3D moon globe, a time bar, two toggleable switches and a search box.

Seismic events are plotted using different indicators. Shallow moonquakes are plotted in green spots with red rings in various numbers to indicate the intensity (magnitude) of the moonquakes. Deep moonquakes are plotted in yellow dots at the same time Apollo Lunar Modules are represented by realistic 3D model provided by NASA 3D Resources.

(Image: Indicators of seismic events or objects)

(Image: Shakesphere's toolbox)

We provide several useful tools like search engine, wireframe mode and time control, for users to interact with the 3D moon globe and better understand the seismic data collected from Passive Seismic Experiments (PSE). With the search engine, user can quickly redirect to the position of a certain seismic event. The wireframe mode allows users to see through the moon globe and showcases seismic patterns comprehensively. Not to mention that with the time control feature, users will be able to see moonquakes and Apollo impacts that happened within a certain time range and observe changes in lunar seismic activities over the years.

WHAT BENEFITS DOES IT HAVE?

Shakesphere is easy to use and user-friendly. Users can interact with the 3D globe to get the full picture of the lunar seismic experiment. With our app, people can learn and study moonquakes in an intuitive approach. Information like date, time, coordinate, magnitude and hypocenter depth are catered and visualized, it is a powerful tool for researchers to study moonquake clusters and possibly to forecast future seismic events.

WHAT DO WE HOPE TO ACHIEVE?

We strongly hope that our solution can inspire more people to indulge themselves in the field of astronomy. With our solution, we can expose young generations to astronomy in a fairly young age. We used realistic 3D models to spark their curiosity in finding and learning more about the Apollo missions and even the field of astronomy as a whole.

TOOLS

Planetary Data System (PDS) by NASA - To get the data needed to display in the app
NASA 3D Resources - A 3D model library by NASA
NASA Scientific Visualization Studio - To obtain the color and visualization map of the moon globe
Visual Studio Code - An Integrated Development Environment
Three.js - A JavaScript library to display 3D computer graphics
Replit - An online IDE for collaboration

CODING LANGUAUGES

HTML
JavaScript
CSS

Space Agency Data

Planetary Data System (PDS)

The Planetary Data System (PDS) is a long-term archive of digital data products returned from NASA's planetary missions. We have used PDS in order to obtain genuine and accurate data. PDS provides many useful data associated with lunar seismic experiments such as time, magnitude and coordinate data. These abstract data are then processed to be presented in an easy-to-understand and intuitive way.

Hackathon Journey

At first we had been looking for challenges that lies under the 'software' category since programming and developing app is something that we are most familiar with. It took us some time to agree on which challenge to choose because most challenges we are interested in like Track the Space Station in 3D, Make a Moonquake Map and Save the Earth from another Carrington Event, are generally very hard, and we did not know where to start with. At the end, we choose to challenge ourselves by picking Make a Moonquake Map as our challenge.

The most obvious challenge is time. 2 days to create an app is simply too short. We have to cope with the time pressure and make sure everything is on track. We have learnt a lot from this 2-day hackathon, teamwork and experience are the most precious things we have gained in these 2 days. We have realized, co-operation is the key to success. We had two sleepless night, working together and dedicated all our time to work on this project.

It is really satisfying and delighting when we have finally came out with a solution. We would like to thank NASA for hosting this hackathon that gives us a platform to discover and display our talent. We are looking forward to participating again next year.