High-Level Project Summary
Photometric data collected by recent missions such as Kepler and OGLE surveys help scientists identify variations in star brightness. The variation in brightness patterns can provide important information about star companions, flares, and even be used to calculate the distance of the star from Earth. However, these variations can not observable by the naked eye, and the graphs that display the data can be confusing to the average person. Thus, we created Astraeus, a web interface that allows its users to easily visualize a star’s apparent brightness over time through 3D models.
Link to Final Project
Link to Project "Demo"
Detailed Project Description
Astraeus’ main page contains a number of preset variable stars. Clicking on each star brings up a light graph and generates corresponding a rotating 3D model showing its brightness variation pattern. The slider at the bottom can be manipulated by the user to control the time.
The project revolves around the LightKurve python library, which contains lightcurve data for thousands of stars. For our purposes, we used the library to generate JSON files containing information about the star’s luminosity and time period. The files were uploaded and then javascript was used to display the star and the graph on an HTML page. The 3D star and orbiting planet were created with Three.js, a 3D graphics javascript API, and the graph was created with chart.js. The front end was done with CSS and HTML, and the final website was hosted on GitHub pages. We were aiming to add a lookup feature to add any star, however due to time constraints we were forced to limit the web app to 4 preset stars.
Our web app allows its users to easily visualize variations in star brightness that are otherwise imperceptible due to their subtleness and long periods. We hope that this perspective helps users gain a better understanding of variable stars and their implications in space exploration. We hope to incorporate a search function in the future to allow our users to explore their own stars of choice. This project can also be improved with UI optimizations, more educational content written by experts, and also gamification options.
Space Agency Data
The Lightkurve library gets data from the NASA Kepler, K2, and TESS exoplanet missions. The python package is a community developed so that students and scientists alike can easily access the data. The library was our sole source of data regarding star luminosity in our project. The efforts to make powerful data easily accessible inspired us to do something similar, which we did by providing a physical way to visualize the graphs provided by Lightkurve.
Hackathon Journey
Our hackathon journey was chaotic and fun. Our team of three worked remotely together spanning both coasts of the United States. Our brainstorming process was lengthy but we eventually came to an agreement that visualizing the twinkling of stars was both romantic and practical in nature.
After our initial discussion, each team member elected different parts of the project based on interest. We previously had no experience working with Lightkurve, Three.js, or chart.js but eventually figured out using various online tutorials. We remained flexible in our project goals and pivoted often due to unexpected difficulties. We all learned a lot about astrophysics and star nomenclature along the way.
We’d like to thank our families for providing sustenance throughout this 48-hour journey.
References
Encyclopedia Brittanica
University of Ohio Astronomy 162 Lecture notes.
NASA Exoplanet Archive
Lightkurve python library
Three.js
Chart.js
Tags
#software, #javascript, #astronomy, #cepheids, #stars, #web