OpenPlanetary Data Cafe and Friends

Michael Aye

2024-09-13

Who am I, Michael Aye?

• Coding-inclined planetary scientist, participated in several space missions (Dawn, Cassini, BepiColombo)
• Fighter for open-source, open-data, open-science
  • If I can’t reproduce with public data and public code, I consider published works at best smelly.
• Worked at MPS, UBe, UCLA(JPL/NASA), LASP, Freie Uni Berlin.

You can find this talk and other resources on https://michaelaye.github.io/

What is OpenPlanetary?

Practically speaking

We are

• a Slack forum (possibly changing soon-ish)
• an open discussion forum
  • publicly searchable
  • https://openplanetary.discourse.group/)

Our Mission

Our mission is

• to promote and facilitate the open practice of planetary science and data analysis for professionals and amateurs
• by organizing events and conducting collaborative projects aimed at creating scientific, technical and educational resources, tools and data accessible to all.
  • e.g. monthly OP Virtual Lunch talks

OUR STORY

• started back in 2015 from an initial participants effort to stay connected and share information related to and beyond the ESA’s first Planetary GIS Workshop.
• continued during the 2nd USGS Planetary Data Workshop, and aggregated more people.
• In 2018, established non-profit organisation, to provide a legal framework to sustainably fund our community framework, projects and activities, and better serve the planetary science community as a whole.

People

• co-founded by presiden Nicolas Manaud and US chttps://www.planetarymapping.eu/ounter-part Chase Million (https://www.openplanetary.org/about)
• we have a board of directors with shared responsibilities
• Slack channel has > 800 members from all over the world
• you can find many planetary scientists, planetary data experts, software developers, directly involved in the tools you use every day

GMAP course

• A regular growth event is the Planetary Geologic Mapping Winter School of the GMAP organization by Angelo Rossi and others
• https://www.planetarymapping.eu/
  • Lots of resources for planetary geologic mapping to find there!

Covered topics by OP members in Slack and Discourse Forum

• channels for PDS, PSA, ISIS, GDAL, PlanetaryPython, SPICE, conda, mapping, jupyter, machine-learning, cloud, docker, QGIS, and more.
• folks directly involved in the tools you use every day: GDAL, ISIS, PDS, SPICE, PSA, ASP, PlanetaryPython, etc.

Forum

• to preserve and make searchable / findable discussions of general interest to the community:
• https://openplanetary.discourse.group/

Software stack

If you are new to planetary science, you might not be aware of all the tools and resources available to you. (OP can help with that! #tools channel)

Here’s a quick overview of the planetary science software stack.

Software virtual environments

• Despite some challenges and learning curves, many people recommend conda environments as the most sustainable way to manage software dependencies in our field of science.
• Don’t listen to your IT departments, when they say, you can do everything without conda. (convince them otherwise ;) )
  • GDAL still today is the dealbreaker, requires more work than really necessary.
  • There are a few other libraries that have similar issues.

conda/mamba

• ISIS requires conda anyway, so why not use it for everything?
• I have created a “minimal reading”blog post for conda environments:
  • https://michaelaye.github.io/posts/minimal-conda-setup-instructions/
• There’s also a presentation that might need some updates but contains general truths
  • https://michaelaye.github.io/talks/2021-conda-workshop-kharkiv/
• In short: Use mamba, via the conda-forge channel, enjoy life.

Planetary Python

• We are an organization as well:
  • https://planetarypy.org/
  • We have code of conduct, regular technical meetings, trying to establish a core package for standard tasks in planetary python.
• I have a large-ish chaotic package, that is being transferred to the organization, piece-by-piece, in a peer-review fashion.
• slowly growing community package: https://github.com/planetarypy/planetarypy

Demo

• Show SPICE and Index functionality