The Biosignature Database - Standardized data reporting for Astrobiology

2022-06-13 237 words 2 minutes

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Contents

The Biosignature Database: Standardized data reporting for Astrobiology

Language: Python

1 Current State

There currently are no standards regarding the reporting of astrobiological data. However, given the numerous astrobiology-focused missions that are currently active in the Solar System, and more specifically on Mars, the amount and quality of data that will return to Earth is expected to be unprecedented.

NASA is currently developing the Astrobiology Habitable Environments Database (AHED). The goals of AHED are to:

serve as a centralized digital library of NASA funded research relevant to the Astrobiology Program;

enable proposers to fulfill mandated data management plan (DMP) archiving requirements;

serve a resource for the broader scientific community promoting the advancement of astrobiology through data sharing and standardization

Following those guidelines, The Biosignature Databse is a student initiative aiming to set standards in boisignature data reporting. app preview

2 The Biosignature Database

Built with Plotly Dash, The Biosignature Database is a web app helping the astrobiology community finding, visualizing, and reporting data on biosignatures.

Users can browse the database by locating the various biosignatures detected in analogue environments on Earth using the interactive map in the center of the dashboard. By hovering above a data point, more information about the biosignature(s) is displayed, including the detection methods, type and sub-category of biosignatures (following Hays et al. 2017), and Mars counterpart environments.

Users may also submit new data to the PostgreSQL data or download the dataset as a .CSV file.

The web app runs locally on your machine after cloning the GitHub repository. The app is deployed on Heroku and accessible here.