Asteroid hunters announce discovery of 27,500 new potential asteroids while searching for space rocks

Toggle navigation geek wire TRENDING: Seattle TV station says AI and Photoshop-generated zebra meme is enough Asteroid hunters announce discovery of 27,500 new potential asteroids while searching for space rocks By Alan Boyle May 1, 2024 8:29pm This visualization shows the orbits of asteroids discovered in the solar system by ADAM and THOR. (Source: B612 Asteroid Research Institute / University of Washington DiRAC Institute / OpenSpace Project) A team of asteroid seekers, including researchers at the University of Washington, says they have identified 27,500 likely candidates for new asteroid discoveries by searching archives of astronomical data rather than new observations of the night sky. Announced. His week-long database search was conducted by the Asteroid Institute, a program of the nonprofit B612 Foundation, in collaboration with the University of California DiRAC Institute and Google Cloud. The two institutes have developed a program called THOR, which stands for “Tracklet-less Heliocentric Orbit Recovery.” THOR runs on a cloud-based open source platform called ADAM (“Asteroid Discovery Analysis and Mapping”). ). The program analyzes the positions of millions of moving points of light observed in the sky over a period of time and is able to connect these points in a way that is consistent with their trajectories. His CTO office at Google Cloud worked with the Asteroid Institute to optimize algorithms for Google Cloud. This project analyzed his 5.4 billion observations from NOIRLab Source Catalog Data Release 2. “What’s interesting is that in addition to regular photons in the telescope, we’re also using electrons in the data center to make astronomical discoveries,” said Ed Lu, executive director of the Asteroid Research Institute, in a press release. stated in a release. Most of the 27,500 asteroid discovery candidates are in the main belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The candidates also include more than 100 asteroids that are believed to be approaching Earth. The Asteroid Research Institute’s long-term goal is to build an observation system that can detect potentially threatening near-Earth objects long before they approach Earth. Confirming the findings can be a difficult task, but the institute is considering using Google’s artificial intelligence tools to streamline the process. Astronomers expect a flood of data once Bella C is born. Rubin Observatory will begin scientific operations in Chile in 2025. “The results from the Asteroid Institute are of great interest to the Vera C. “It will help generate benefits for several scientific programs, such as supernova explosions of major interest,” said University of California astronomer Zeljko Ivezic, project manager for the observatory’s construction.