The astronomers have used a cloud-based technique that originated at the University of Washington for detecting and tracking asteroids in batches of a hundred or more. Their achievement could dramatically accelerate the search for potentially threatening space rocks.
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The technique uses an open-source analysis platform based in the cloud, known as Asteroid Discovery Analysis and Mapping or ADAM, together with an algorithm that was recently developed and is called Tracklet-less Heliocentric Orbit Recovery or THOR. The THOR algorithm was created by Joachim Moeyens, a member of the Asteroid Institute at UW and Mario Juric, director of the DiRAC Institute at UW.
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The collaboration of ADAM and THOR may sound strange, but the superpower of this dynamic duo is strictly scientific: When ADAM runs the THOR algorithm, the software can determine the orbits of asteroids, even previously unidentified asteroids, by sifting through any large database of astronomical observations.
To demonstrate the power of the technique, Moeyens used THOR to analyze 30 days of images from the NOIRLab Source Catalog, a collection of nearly 68 billion observations made by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory's telescopes between 2012 and 2019.
Moeyens selected a sample of more than 1,300 asteroid detections made using THOR and submitted this sample to the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center. The center, which maintains the authoritative list of asteroids, ended up adding 104 of the asteroids to its list. Most of the newly discovered asteroids are in the main belt, between Mars and Jupiter. None of them pose a threat to Earth.
Validation for the new asteroid search technique could pave the way for the discovery of thousands more asteroids hidden in datasets from NOIRLab and other telescope groups.
When we talk about an asteroid discovery, it is essential to be able to describe its orbit. Over 750,000 asteroids on the Minor Planet Center's list have been identified by tracking shifts in orbits , often starting with shifts observed over the course of a single night.
In recent years computers have managed to greatly simplify the process of this monitoring mission. However, relying on single-night tracks, which astronomers call “tracklets”, can only take you so far.
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The cloud-based ADAM-THOR technique can examine archival views of the night sky recorded at different times and then expand from that data to locate the same asteroid at different points in its orbit.
Moeyens said the “tracklet-less” search technique doesn’t need to be limited to archival searches. “With additional development, ADAM-THOR will be able to perform real-time asteroid discovery in observations as they come in from telescopes around the world,” he said.
Information source: finance.yahoo.com
