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asteroids. explore()

Challenge: When Light Curves Throw Us Curve Balls

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Team

Windows Subs

Borys Shumar

Anastasiia Pedan

Denys Lohvynov

Olha Voichyk

Sverdlichenko Dmitry

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One of the few ways scientists can try to estimate an asteroid's shape from an extreme distance is by looking at its light curve—i.e., examining how bright the asteroid is and how that brightness changes with time.

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The goal of our challenge is to develop a tool that allows users to explore how the shape of an asteroid affects the appearance of its light curve.

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EXPLAINING

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SOLUTION

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DEMONSTRATION

asteroids.explore() allows users to load a 3D model of their choosing, pick the plane of the spectator and the axis of rotation and after some computation get the light curve in question. Through simulations and analytical modelling, a wide range of users can study asteroids from homes. To test our project, we use 3d models of asteroids from NASA’S repository.

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DEMONSTRATION

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Ways to improve out project:

“There’s always room for improvement.”

— Joey Logano

◇ Our project has potential to become an open-source collection of Jupiter Notebooks each of which allows for modelling of some physical process (e.g. trajectories of binary stars)

◇ Improvement of the user experience

◇ Independence of outside libraries

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IMPROVEMENT