Planetary Risk Telemetry Challenge
Tracking hundreds of asteroids passing near Earth requires automated JSON ingestion, dimensional schema normalization, and kinematic risk scoring across velocity, diameter, and miss distance.
The BI Analytical Solution
Built an automated Power BI intelligence pipeline consuming NASA's NeoWs API, modeling physical properties and close-approach telemetry with advanced DAX measures and interactive hazard scatter matrices.
Scientific & Risk Intelligence Impact
Provides aerospace researchers, planetary defense analysts, and educators with immediate visual clustering of high-risk NEOs versus benign lunar-distance trajectories.
Live Interactive BI Report
Interactive Navigation Guide: Filter by date window or toggle the 'Potentially Hazardous' slicer to isolate high-risk close approaches. Explore the scatter matrix correlating asteroid diameter with relative flyby velocity and click individual object cards to inspect exact orbital metrics.
Astronomical Telemetry Findings & Planetary Risk Insights
Quantitative analysis of Near-Earth Object telemetry yields four key conclusions regarding orbital risk distributions:
1. Kinetic Velocity vs. Diameter Distribution
Over 85% of detected NEOs measure under 100 meters in diameter, exhibiting hyper-velocity flybys between 40,000 km/h and 110,000 km/h relative to Earth's barycenter.
2. PHA Hazard Ratio Baseline
Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) represent 8% to 12% of tracked weekly objects, with the vast majority maintaining comfortable safety margins beyond 10 Lunar Distances (3.8M+ km).
3. Absolute Magnitude (H) Inverse Law
Visualizing absolute magnitude against estimated diameter confirmed the inverse logarithmic scaling: objects with H > 24 consistently correlate with sub-50-meter rock fragments.
4. Automated REST ETL Resilience
The decoupled JSON parser and Star Schema architecture ensure zero data degradation even when NASA API responses contain variable daily object counts or missing albedo parameters.
NASA Planetary Defense & Telemetry Objectives
Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) are comets and asteroids whose orbits bring them into proximity with Earth's orbit (within 1.3 Astronomical Units). NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office continuously surveys these celestial bodies to evaluate collision probabilities and kinetic energy profiles.
This business intelligence project ingests raw JSON feeds from the NASA NeoWs (Near Earth Object Web Service) API. The analytical objective is to structure a scalable reporting layer that calculates hazard ratios, diameter confidence intervals, and close approach velocity distributions in real time.
Dataset Source & API Telemetry
Access NASA API PortalReal-time Ingestion & 7-Day Rolling Orbit Windows
Orbital Kinematics, Miss Distances (LD/KM), Estimated Diameter & PHA Classification
Stakeholder Decision Personas
- Planetary Defense Researchers & Astronomers: Filter and track high-priority objects exhibiting minimum orbit intersection distance (MOID) anomalies.
- Aerospace Data Analysts & Telemetry Engineers: Evaluate size-velocity power laws and model orbital kinetic energy ranges.
- Science Communicators & Academic Institutions: Demystify close approach astronomy through intuitive risk-tier visualizations and empirical benchmarks.
Aerospace Data Model Architecture (Star Schema)
The nested JSON payloads from the NeoWs API were flattened and transformed into a Power BI Star Schema separating physical asteroid dimensions from temporal close-approach events:
Fact_Close_Approaches
- ApproachID (PK) BIGINT
- NeoKey (FK) INT
- DateKey (FK) INT [YYYYMMDD]
- MissDistance_KM DECIMAL(14,2)
- MissDistance_LD DECIMAL(8,4)
- RelativeVelocity_KMH DECIMAL(10,2)
- OrbitingBody VARCHAR(10)
Dim_Near_Earth_Object
- NeoKey (PK) INT
- SPK_ID INT
- Name VARCHAR(50)
- AbsoluteMagnitude_H DECIMAL(4,2)
- EstDiameterMin_M DECIMAL(8,2)
- EstDiameterMax_M DECIMAL(8,2)
- IsPotentiallyHazardous BOOLEAN
Dim_Approach_Date
- DateKey (PK) INT [YYYYMMDD]
- FullDate DATE
- DayOfWeek VARCHAR(10)
- Year / Month INT / VARCHAR(10)
- IsCurrentWindow BOOLEAN
Kinematic & Risk Metric Calculations in DAX
Engineered DAX formulas computing average estimated diameter, Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA) ratios, and minimum approach distance:
// Mean Estimated Asteroid Diameter (Meters)
Avg_Estimated_Diameter_M =
AVERAGEX(
Dim_Near_Earth_Object,
DIVIDE(Dim_Near_Earth_Object[EstDiameterMin_M] + Dim_Near_Earth_Object[EstDiameterMax_M], 2)
)
// Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA) Ratio (%)
PHA_Hazard_Ratio =
DIVIDE(
CALCULATE(COUNTROWS(Dim_Near_Earth_Object), Dim_Near_Earth_Object[IsPotentiallyHazardous] = TRUE()),
COUNTROWS(Dim_Near_Earth_Object),
0
) * 100
// Minimum Miss Distance in Window (Lunar Distances)
Min_Miss_Distance_LD =
MIN(Fact_Close_Approaches[MissDistance_LD])