HWO Exoplanet Characterization Platform (Asteroid Destroyer)

Problem

The future Habitable Worlds Observatory needs to know which known exoplanets it could actually observe and characterize.

Solution

A React/three.js web platform over NASA Exoplanet Archive and Gaia data that renders exoplanets relative to Earth, classifies them (gas giant, super-Earth, terrestrial, Neptunian) with literature thresholds, combines habitable-zone, size, temperature and eccentricity scores, estimates signal-to-noise for characterization, and adds K-nearest-neighbours and an LLM-based habitability classifier.

Demo moment

Not described in the sources.

Why it stood out

• organizer statedWon the award for best connecting people around the world through technology.Source ↗
• organizer statedUsed data processing and machine learning to map exoplanets by size, temperature and distance.Source ↗
• team statedEvery classification threshold and habitability score cites the paper it comes from.Source ↗
• team statedAdds a signal-to-noise estimate, so the map answers 'can HWO characterize it?' rather than only 'where is it?'.Source ↗

Lessons for your next hackathon

• Cite the source of every scoring rule; it turns a visualization into a defensible tool.
• Answer the mission's real question (observability), not just the display request.