Singularity Zero

Inspiration

We have been very intrigued by dark matter and its influence on our universe, and we wanted to see how dark matter interacts with exoplanetary systems and what it may reveal about our own Solar System.

What it does

We found the dark matter density of where each exoplanet was located, and from this we were able to see the correlations between the dark matter density and other properties of the exoplanetary systems.

How we built it

We used astropy to calculate the galactocentric coordinates of each planet, the three dimensional distance formula to find the distance of each planet from the galactic center, and the Navarro–Frenk–White (NFW) profile to calculate the dark matter density itself. We then used statistical testing to see for any statistically significant relations.

Challenges we ran into

We definitely had to do a lot of research into dark matter. It is still a mysterious area of the universe, so we had to do a lot of digging to find relevant information. For example, the NFW profile has constants needed to use the formulas, and we had to do a lot of digging to find values that were accurate and accepted by the scientific community.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're proud of how our technical skills improved, as well as how we were able to learn so much about a topic we weren't familiar with and were able to combine that with our love for data science and computer science.

What we learned

We learned a lot about astropy and improving our own technical skills. We also learned a lot about dark matter, our galaxy, and the history of our universe.

What's next for Singularity Zero

We want to see how our findings compare to other properties of exoplanetary systems, like maybe the atmospheric contents of exoplanets, the solar flares of a star, etc.