InterSystems Employee Programming Challenge #1 Employees only

Registration Ends: 26 Jul, 2026, 11:59:59 PM EST
Task
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Using the publicly available Gaia DR3 epoch photometry archives, identify astronomical objects whose characteristics BP or RP changed by more than 100% over the observation period and generate a list of results.
Description of the columns of Gaia DR3 epoch photometry files available in Gaia documentation.
💡 Update: Based on feedback from early participants, we have defined a standard benchmark dataset for the challenge. All submissions should process only the first 20 files from the Gaia DR3 epoch photometry archive: EpochPhotometry_000000-003111.* through EpochPhotometry_020985-021233.*

Steps to make:
For each source_id:

  1. Process the bp_flux and rp_flux arrays
  2. Ignore missing, null, NaN, or otherwise invalid flux values
  3. Calculate the minimum (min_flux) and maximum (max_flux) valid flux values for both BP and RP bands across all valid observations
  4. Calculate the percentage change using the following formula for each band (BP and RP):
    Percentage change = ((max_flux − min_flux) / min_flux) × 100
  5. Choose the biggest value of the two as resulting percentage_change

The output must include the following data for each astronomical object that satisfies the criteria (calculated percentage change is greater than 100%):

  • source_id
  • bp_min_flux
  • bp_max_flux
  • rp_min_flux
  • rp_max_flux
  • percentage_change
26 Registered Application(s)
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Bonuses
ISC-Programming-Challenge-GAIA
ISC-Programming-Challenge-GAIA
InterSystems Coding Challenge: detects astronomical sources with >100% BP/RP flux variability in Gaia DR3, via IRIS Embedded Python + polars (with an opt-in C/libdeflate kernel)
1 Bonuses
InterSystems Employee Programming Challenge #1 solution
InterSystems Employee Programming Challenge #1 solution
InterSystems Employee Programming Challenge #1 solution
gaia-codegolf
gaia-codegolf
Minimal-code solution to the challenge: identify Gaia DR3 sources whose BP or RP flux changed by more than 100% over the observation period and write the result CSV. Optimized for fewest lines of code (see the sibling repo gaia-benchmark for the speed-optimized, parallel variant).
2 Bonuses
gaia-benchmark
gaia-benchmark
Speed-optimized solution to the challenge: identify Gaia DR3 sources whose BP or RP flux changed by more than 100% over the observation period and write the result CSV. Optimized for shortest execution time via parallel parsing, ≈1.3 seconds (see the sibling repo gaia-codegolf for the minimal-code variant).
2 Bonuses
iris-gaia-dr3
iris-gaia-dr3
IoP application for the Gaia DR3 epoch photometry benchmark
2 Bonuses
Gaia
Gaia
Gaia challenge with interactive 3D visualization
2 Bonuses
gaia-golf
gaia-golf
Code-golf submission for the ISC Employee Programming contest
InterSystems-Employee-Programming-Challenge-001-jwhitney
InterSystems-Employee-Programming-Challenge-001-jwhitney
InterSystems Employee Programming Challenge #1 Submission: https://openexchange.intersystems.com/contest/47
Gaia_Challenge_Benchmark
Gaia_Challenge_Benchmark
Contest-Gaia DR3 Epoch Photometry Variability Analysis
Employee-Programming-Challenge-1-jwhitney-Code-Golf
Employee-Programming-Challenge-1-jwhitney-Code-Golf
InterSystems Employee Programming Challenge #1 Submission: https://openexchange.intersystems.com/contest/47
Gaia_Challenge_One_Line_SQL_Objectscript
Gaia_Challenge_One_Line_SQL_Objectscript
One line of ObjectScript identifies Gaia DR3 variable stars!!
1 Bonuses
isc-gaia-challenge
isc-gaia-challenge
using IRIS Embedded Python + Polars
isc-coding-challenge-golf
isc-coding-challenge-golf
A code-golf submission for the ISC Programming Challenge
isc-challenge-july-2026-jumillet-golf
isc-challenge-july-2026-jumillet-golf
My code golf solution to the ISC Employee Programming Challenge for July 2026.
intersystems-challenge
intersystems-challenge
Code for the InterSystems Programming Challenge
gaia-the-fast-and-the-short
gaia-the-fast-and-the-short
Scanning GAIA data
intersystems-challenge-GAIA
intersystems-challenge-GAIA
InterSystems Employee Programming Challenge #1 — processes 20 gzip-compressed Gaia DR3 EpochPhotometry files to identify astronomical objects whose BP or RP flux changed by more than 100%, using IRIS ObjectScript + Polars (Python) for high-performance parallel processing.
Gaia FluxStream
Gaia FluxStream
A parallel Gaia engine for InterSystems Employee Contest #1
Dong (Python)
Dong (Python)
It processes and analyze all 20 files using embedded python
isc-coding-challenge-benchmark
isc-coding-challenge-benchmark
A benchmark submission for the ISC Programming Challenge
ISC-Programming-Challenge1 - NumPy solution
ISC-Programming-Challenge1 - NumPy solution
extract csv.gz to Numpy vectors and do vectorized caculation
Gaia Flux Variability
Gaia Flux Variability
InterSystems Employee Programming Challenge #1 — Gaia DR3 photometric variability analysis.
Gaia_Challenge_SQL_Golf_AI_Game
Gaia_Challenge_SQL_Golf_AI_Game
SQL Golf: Can You Beat Par and Find 57,099 Stars?
InterSystems Gaia Contest - Codegolf
InterSystems Gaia Contest - Codegolf
InterSystems Employee Programming Challenge #1
1 Bonuses
lumeon-submission
lumeon-submission
Finds Gaia DR3 sources whose BP or RP flux changed by more than
gaia-planetarium
gaia-planetarium
A Planetarium Web app built on InterSystems IRIS using Flask, Pyprod and Embedded Python, and data from the Gaia and Hipparcos datasets