Submitted to Cutie Hack 2024 🍊
InteR'planetary is an interactive web application designed to spark curiosity about space science by allowing users to design their own planets and evaluate their habitability based on scientific principles.
Our fascination with space exploration and the quest to discover habitable planets inspired InteR'planetary. The theme of CutieHack, "space," fueled our desire to create a hands-on educational tool where users can visualize and manipulate the parameters that influence a planet's habitability.
InteR'planetary lets users:
- Customize planets by adjusting parameters like mass, radius, distance from a star, and more.
- Calculate a Habitability Score based on scientific frameworks, including:
- The Statistic-Likelihood Exo-planetary Habitability Index (SEPHI) (Rodríguez-Mozos et al. 2017).
- The Habitable Zones Around Main-Sequence Stars model (Kopparapu et al. 2013).
- Interact with a visually engaging spinning globe that responds dynamically to user input.
By combining educational insights with interactive visuals, InteR'planetary offers a fun way to explore the science of planetary habitability.
- Frontend: Built with React and Three.js, enabling dynamic visuals like a spinning, customizable globe.
- Backend: Developed with Python using Flask to handle calculations based on planetary parameters.
- Scientific Basis: The app integrates principles from SEPHI and Habitable Zone models to assess the likelihood of habitability for user-designed planets.
- Data Scarcity: We struggled to find comprehensive datasets on known habitable planets, making machine learning unfeasible.
- Complex Calculations: Translating scientific research into code was a challenge, but we overcame it by leveraging statistical likelihood methods.
- Successfully developed a full-stack application for the first time, combining frontend visuals with backend computations.
- Created a scientifically accurate tool that aligns with established planetary models.
- Built an engaging and educational experience that merges science with interactivity.
- Gained hands-on experience with full-stack development and 3D rendering using Three.js.
- Delved into scientific concepts like the SEPHI index and Habitable Zone calculations.
- Learned how to transform complex mathematical models into interactive, user-friendly applications.
We aim to expand InteR'planetary by:
- Allowing users to design custom landmasses and planetary surfaces.
- Introducing the ability to create and explore specific solar systems.
- Incorporating dynamic asteroid impacts and other space phenomena for an even more immersive experience.
- Habitability Score Calculations: Based on the SEPHI Index and Habitable Zones Around Main-Sequence Stars.
Join us in exploring the cosmos—one custom-built planet at a time! 🚀