Are you a teacher and would like to get involved in this initiative? Start by getting your school or organisation aware of this event. 

• ESA will provide all the necessary materials to organise a hack an exoplanet event. Including the Cheops data, inspirational talks, the challenges and the solutions. The materials will be freely available in multiple languages, through this platform to everyone. 
• Local hosts will have to promote the event locally (in their school or community) and put together a group of teams of students that would like to participate, and provide support and guidance. 

Note: if you would like to organise a physical hackathon, make sure you have an adequate space for the teams to prepare and develop their projects. Including access to computers and internet.  

Set a date that is convenient for your students and school community. We suggest a date between April and May 2023. 

All the materials you will need to organise the hackathon will be available on the platform in early April. 

ESA will have a live transmission of the hackathon on the 18 April 2023, from 14h to 17h CET. 

Inspire the teams to join the hackathon using the classroom resources, videos and quiz available in this platform, or by asking a question to a scientist. You can complete these activities with the students beforehand in preparation to the hackathon event.

Create an account on the platform! You will receive important updates about the Cheops observations and developments on the project, be able to register your event and much more.

If you would like to ask questions and have more information about the exoplanets and content of the challenges, join the information session for hackathon hosts on the 3 April 14h CET. We will go through all the materials with you and make sure that you have all the information necessary to organise an hack an exoplanet event.  

If your country has a local organiser you can contact them for extra support. 

This is the big day! 

The hackathon challenges consist of inspirational problems that use real satellite data of two exoplanets, observed by Cheops specifically for this event. 

A hackathon event is expected to last about 3 hours and it should be accessible to all students. 

The hackathon is divided in two parts. In the first part we will use the data of the first exoplanet as a guided example. In the second part students will have to analyse the data of the second exoplanet in an autonomous way. After the hackathon teams are invited to submit their projects in this platform to receive a participation certificate and apply for the best project prize. 

​Learning objectives of the event: 

• Use real data for educational activities, focusing on subjects such as mathematics, physics and computing​
• Working scientifically, problem solving and teamwork. ​
• Analyse mathematical data, interpret and fit mathematical /physical models, forming hypothesis and derive conclusions from those models. ​
• Determine the size, density, orbital period, and temperature of the planets.​
• Present their analyses and conclusions in a scientific way.

Support the teams that would like to take their participation further and showcase their project in the Hack an Exoplanet platform. All teams that submit a project will receive a participation certificate. 

Teams can submit their projects to the platform until 14 June 2023. 

All submitted projects will also compete to the Best Project Prize. A jury composed of ESA, and Cheops experts will select the best projects based on the quality of their analysis  and report submitted. The winning teams will receive ESA goodies and the unique opportunity of participating  in a live webinar with Nobel Prize Laureate Didier Queloz in July 2023.