Projects
CS
Layer Analyzing

Layer Analyzing

Ken Luo, Christopher Pierre Nguyen, Kimberly Reyes, Edwin Ruiz, Elizabeth Sanchez, Alyssa Solon

Advisor: Elaine Kang, Yuqing Zhu

Abstract

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research facility and development center managed for NASA by Caltech that carries out robotic space and Earth science missions. JPL has conducted robotic missions to study all the planets in the solar system as well as asteroids, comets and the Earth's moon. Today JPL continues its world-leading innovation, implementing programs in planetary exploration, Earth science, space-based astronomy, and technology development.

There have been various missions to the moon such as Apollo 15, 16, and 17 just to name a few. Through those missions, data about elements and terrain were gathered. Some instruments were more precise in gathering information and thus produced larger data files. Some data was only collected from a landing site while others were gathered from the entire moon. That also contributes to disparity of the data files.

Through the missions involving collecting data from Earth's moon JPL has created Moon Trek, a mapping and modeling portal for the Moon. There are over 2500 layers available on Moontrek, which store information about the moon such as elevation, element concentration, and roughness. Not all of the layers contain raw data which can be analyzed. Moreover, Moontrek does not allow for statistical analysis of layers besides the elevation layer. Visuals of data through graphs is also lacking. To address this issue, JPL is partnering with California State University - Los Angeles, College of Engineering, Computer Science, and Technology to create an analytical tool consisting of functions that will analyze a single or multiple layers. Such calculations will include minimum, maximum, average, median, standard deviation, variance, histogram, etc. for a single layer. Analysis of multiple layers will include correlation, covariance, clustering, and visual representation of the results. Such analysis will provide more insight about the Moon and the elements there to the user and perhaps more importantly to scientists.