B612 Foundation Tests New Software That Can Hunt a ‘Potentially Hazardous Object' Like Asteroid Heading to Earth [LOOK]

A new computational tool created by the Asteroid Institute, a non-profit space group, analyzes historical data gathered by observatories to locate asteroids that scientists may have missed.

The greatest worry of space enthusiasts is asteroids that may collide with Earth and wipe out human civilization. Despite all of our technical advances, the grasp of our solar system is woefully restricted. Occasionally, massive asteroids have whizzed by the Earth at thousands of miles per hour. It wouldn't be surprising if one of them would be heading directly for us.

Interesting Engineering said the B612 Foundation was created in 2002 due to certain space enthusiasts' dissatisfaction with governments' lack of efforts to check the skies for such asteroids. The private non-profit group was also raising funding for its own space telescope, which is planned to build, launch, and manage. After NASA decided to launch its own asteroid-spotting telescopes, the organization shifted its focus to other asteroid-spotting issues.

New Software Can Hunt Hiding' Potentially Hazardous Objects'

FreeThink said the Asteroid Institute, a part of the non-profit B612 Foundation, and researchers from the University of Washington are pursuing a novel approach to asteroid finding.

They devised a computer method dubbed THOR ("Tracklet-less Heliocentric Orbit Recovery") that can sift through existing telescope photographs for evidence of asteroids and calculate their orbits instead of undertaking expensive and in-demand special surveys using powerful telescopes.

The Minor Planet Center, a worldwide agency in charge of tracking asteroids, comets, and other minor things in our solar system, has officially identified and certified 104 asteroids detected with THOR.

The THOR approach to asteroid detection is computationally expensive, but the team was able to overcome what would have been an impossible challenge without the capacity to execute that processing "in the cloud."

The 104 verified asteroids were all discovered in photographs preserved at the National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory for a month.

That collection alone has seven years' worth of photographs, and it's only one of several databases accessible, implying that THOR may find a slew of potentially dangerous asteroids without taking any new shots.

Cloud Computing

When starting with a single point of light, the orbit has an endless number of alternatives. However, because asteroids follow certain orbits, the number of options is limited to a few thousand. Google came in with its cloud-based processing and storage facilities to help them hash out their test orbits, which is still a great data-crunching effort.

THOR has only been utilized to evaluate one-eighth of the data archived since September 2013, resulting in the computation of nearly 1,300 probable asteroids. These were then compared to the Minor Planet Center of the International Astronomical Union's asteroid inventory.

According to The New York Times, the Minor Planet Center certified 104 asteroids as new discoveries. While some asteroids have previously been discovered, the Minor Planet Center validated 104 new discoveries.

In a news release, Dr. Ed Lu, Executive Director of the Asteroid Institute, said: "Discovering and tracking asteroids is crucial to understanding our solar system, enabling the development of space, and protecting our planet from asteroid impacts."

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