Example Resources

NASA does not endorse any non-U.S. Government entity and is not responsible for information contained on non-U.S. Government websites. For non-U.S. Government websites, participants must comply with any data use parameters of that specific website.

NASA Resources

NASA Exoplanet Archive: Catalog of confirmed exoplanets, with their positions and host stars; these can be used as new observation points to simulate their star fields.

Gaia DR3 Catalog (A Precise Three-Dimensional Database of About One Billion Stars Throughout Our Galaxy and Beyond): See in particular the Python access through astroquery.gaia API to avoid downloading the entire DR3 dataset.

Deep Star Maps 2020: Example of sky map constructed from star catalogs.

Space Agency Partner Resources

European Space Agency (ESA)

Hack an Exoplanet: Hack an Exoplanet is an educational activity developed by ESA Education in collaboration with the ESA Science directorate, with support from members of the Cheops Mission Consortium and the ESERO network. ESA’s Cheops observed two exoplanet targets in early 2023, KELT-3b and TOI-560c, and the stellar system K2-141 in September 2023. The data collected by the satellite is available immediately for educational purposes through the hack an exoplanet activity. By joining this activity, you can follow every step of this real-time satellite observation programme, track the Cheops satellite and access the data.

Human and Robotic Exploration Data Archive: The HREDA archive collects the results of ESA funded or co-funded experiments covering a wide range of scientific areas, which were performed during mission and campaigns on/in various space platforms and microgravity ground-based facilities.

Canadian Space Agency (CSA)

Exoplanet Zoo: This page explores a series of famous exoplanets and discusses their potential habitability.

Canadian Astronomy Data Centre: The Canadian Astronomy Data Center (CADC) houses the Government of Canada's astronomy open data.

James Webb Space Telescope Tutorial: This code demonstrates how to download and utilize data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

NIRISS Exoplanet Data: This website shares an example of how data is used to detect potentially habitable exoplanets. The Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) instrument is a Canadian contribution to the James Webb Space Telescope mission. In 2022, it captured the distinct signature of water, along with evidence of clouds and haze in the atmosphere of the exoplanet WASP-96 b. These are some of the features required for planet habitability.

BRITE Constellation Mission Tutorial: This tutorial has been created to help users make use of the open light curve data from the BRITE Constellation Mission. This can be helpful in detecting exoplanets. For additional resources you could conduct an internet search to gather relevant information that may be useful. Potential search keywords could include Firefly rcs northwestern

2024 NASA Space Apps Challenge

Exosky!