Ex luna scientia. In the latter half of the last century, NASA launched its Apollo program with the intent of landing modules and men on the moon in a series of missions spanning the 1960s and 70s. Now, decades later, Notre Dame University-Louaize’s (NDU) Astronomy Club formed a team to trace seismic activity on the moon, using the available data gathered by those same modules. The team, Aberration, comprises Ralph Razzouk, team leader and Math student, Christelle El Helou, Physics, Raphael El Khoury, Computer Graphics and Animation (CGA), and Peter Mouaikel, Albert Haddad, and Patrick Eid, Mechanical Engineering, their project securing them the win in the NASA Space Apps Challenge in Lebanon, in addition to earning an Honorable Mention among 25 global finalists.
To celebrate their success, a ceremony was held at the Pierre Abou Khater Auditorium, where the group received trophies marking their achievement in the presence of the NDU President, Fr. Bechara Khoury, the Vice President for Finance and Administration (VPAF), Abbot Semaan Abou Abdou, the Challenge’s Local Lead in Lebanon, Mr. Antoine Tannous, the NDU Vice President for University Advancement (VPUA), Dr. Antoine Farhat, the Dean of the Faculty of Natural and Applies Sciences (FNAS), Dr. George Eid, and FNAS Professor, Dr. Bassem Sabra.
For context: On October 1 and 2, 2022, NASA invited coders, entrepreneurs, scientists, designers, storytellers, makers, builders, artists, and technologists to come together in a global hackathon, with the purpose of creating in-person and virtual teams to tackle challenges posed by NASA using its open-source data. Aberration opted for the “Make a Moonquake Map!” challenge, creating an interactive 3D model of the moon that plots three moonquake categories: shallow, deep, and meteorite. Over a two-month procession from one stage of the competition to the next, they were named Lebanon’s winning team.
The ceremony began with the Lebanese National anthem, followed by the opening address from Dr. Sabra, the event’s moderator. He thanked the audience for their support, certifying the NDUers’ success as not only a victory for the University, but for Lebanon, which has long been crafting a place of its own in the space sector. Dr. Eid then took to the podium, commending Aberration for their unique success: despite the difficulties that the pandemic posed on their education with two years of remote learning, they won the Challenge on their first attempt, exercising great independence and responsibility. “NDU’s education,” said Dr. Eid, “prepares our students for whatever life may throw at them. At NDU, we live our mission.” The Dean continued, highlighting the team’s process: “These students began this challenge with little information regarding moonquakes, going the extra mile to utilize all the data available at libraries and other platforms, their self-teaching methods yielding a winning product.”
Ralph gave a brief presentation of Aberration’s project and how it came to be. The issue with accurately plotting moonquakes and determining their intensity, he explained, is largely attributed to the tedious process of visualizing data in an Excel spreadsheet. The team decided to combine their respective skills and strengths to therefore create the interactive 3D model, its data representation not only facilitating scientific literacy, but also acting as a valuable tool for students and researchers due to it being both accessible and scalable.
The moonquake map’s potential additionally ties into current NASA activity, particularly the Artemis mission, the first since Apollo to return to the moon and continue accruing relevant seismic data. Moreover, Aberration’s model is not only fit to plot moonquakes alone: with missions to Mars and Titan in development, the software is adaptable to represent the quakes on those celestial bodies as well, furthering the research in our solar system.
“Our job,” said Ralph, “is not only to read and analyze numbers, but to give them a story. Numbers deliver the data, and we provide them with a convincing voice.” He concluded the presentation with a demonstration of the software, the color coding of the different moonquake categories, and the options to change the lighting, rotation speed, and other interactive features.
Dr. Farhat’s address included the backstory of the team formation and participation in the Space Apps Challenge. The VPUA was approached by Mr. Tannous only a few days before NASA launched the competition, the initial surprise quickly overcome with a belief and trust in NDU’s education and students to get the job done, and to do it right. He referenced the University’s accomplishments in building astronomy as a viable field in Lebanon, starting with the fact that the Main Campus’ observatory houses a 60cm telescope, donated by the Geisei Observatory of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) in 2013, with recent plans to move the telescope’s location to Bcharre, marking the new observatory to be at the highest point above sea level in the entire Middle East.
Although it was an unprecedented project, it coalesced and led to a winning team, one that worked with integrity and enthusiasm, Dr. Sabra corroborating the VPUA and likening Aberration to troops who quickly took to the battlefield.
As the Local Lead, Mr. Tannous expressed his admiration of the students, how they so fully fit the recruiting criteria, showcasing kindness, humility, and motivation. He called to attention the absence of an established Lebanese space sector, exacerbated by the lack of governmental funding. However, he stressed, through such work with NASA, there has been a formation of alliances with up to 12 international organizations and space agencies, including the UN and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), with an upcoming meeting with the Conrad Foundation in April 2023.
“These students are diamonds, climbing up the ladder against 18,000 participants in the Space Apps Challenge, and reaching the top 25 globally,” Mr. Tannous stated. “This is a national victory; working with zero budget and on short notice, Aberration was able to grant Lebanon its first nomination in astronomy.” This is not the destination, but only the beginning, as “hunting brains up for the task at hand is the hardest part of the process, but these NDU students showed us that we can and will work from the ground up, until we get to space.” Mr. Tannous finished with these last words of encouragement: “We have the keys, and we have a future, and that future is in space.”
Finally, Father President congratulated Aberration at the podium. “These students are stars themselves,” said Fr. Khoury, “the purpose of NDU’s education being to rear graduates who will take the stage in front of their professors, and show themselves as professors as well, with something to teach those that guided them to this point.” With his ever-persistent support of the Lebanese youth, he asserted that there is nothing left to place our hope in except this new generation, because through them, the sky is indeed not our limit, as they will take us much higher. Fr. Khoury commended all the work the professors and administration put in to bolster the team, ending with a round of applause for the joint efforts of Aberration and NDU’s academic and administrative body.
Ralph, Christelle, Raphael, Peter, Albert, and Patrick were called to the stage and given their trophies, a testament to their outstanding success. Their contribution to astronomy is invaluable, its impact as of yet being unpredictable in its implications, but certain that it is headed in the right trajectory: up. Aberration closed the ceremony with a bow. They stuck the landing.