[meteorite-list] New Desktop Application Has Potential to Increase Asteroid Detection, Now Available to Public

[Ron Baalke]

March 15, 2015
     
New Desktop Application Has Potential to Increase Asteroid Detection, Now Available to Public

A software application based on an algorithm created by a NASA challenge has 
the potential to increase the number of new asteroid discoveries by amateur 
astronomers.

Analysis of images taken of our solar system's main belt asteroids between 
Mars and Jupiter using the algorithm showed a 15 percent increase in positive 
identification of new asteroids.

During a panel Sunday at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas, 
NASA representatives discussed how citizen scientists have made a difference 
in asteroid hunting. They also announced the release of a desktop software 
application developed by NASA in partnership with Planetary Resources, Inc., 
of Redmond, Washington. The application is based on an Asteroid Data 
Hunter-derived algorithm that analyzes images for potential asteroids. It's 
a tool that can be used by amateur astronomers and citizen scientists.

The Asteroid Data Hunter challenge was part of NASA's Asteroid Grand 
Challenge. The data hunter contest series, which was conducted in partnership 
with Planetary Resources under a Space Act Agreement, was announced at the 
2014 South by Southwest Festival and concluded in December. The series 
offered a total of $55,000 in awards for participants to develop 
significantly improved algorithms to identify asteroids in images captured by 
ground-based telescopes. The winning solutions of each piece of the contest 
combined to create an application using the best algorithm that increased the 
detection sensitivity, minimized the number of false positives, ignored 
imperfections in the data, and ran effectively on all computer systems.

"The Asteroid Grand Challenge is seeking non-traditional partnerships to 
bring the citizen science and space enthusiast community into NASA's 
work," said Jason Kessler, program executive for NASA's Asteroid Grand 
Challenge. "The Asteroid Data Hunter challenge has been successful beyond 
our hopes, creating something that makes a tangible difference to asteroid 
hunting astronomers and highlights the possibility for more people to play a 
role in protecting our planet."

The data hunter challenge incorporated data provided by the Minor Planet 
Center (MPC), at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in 
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and images provided by the Catalina Sky Survey, an 
astronomical survey project run by the University of Arizona, Tucson, and 
focused on the discovery and study of near-Earth asteroids and comets.

"We applaud all the participants in the Asteroid Data Hunter challenge. We 
are extremely encouraged by the algorithm created and it's already making a 
difference. This increase in knowledge will help assess more quickly which 
asteroids are potential threats, human destinations or resource rich," said 
Chris Lewicki, president and chief engineer at Planetary Resources. "It has 
been exciting for our team to work with NASA on this project, and we also 
look forward to future space-based systems leveraging these results."

Astronomers find asteroids by taking images of the same place in the sky and 
looking for star-like objects that move between frames, an approach that has 
been used since before Pluto was discovered in 1930. With more telescopes 
scanning the sky, the ever-increasing volume of data makes it impossible for 
astronomers to verify each detection by hand. This new algorithm gives 
astronomers the ability to use computers to autonomously and rapidly check 
the images and determine which objects are suitable for follow up, which 
leads to finding more asteroids than previously possible.

"The beauty of such archives is that the data doesn't grow stale, and with 
novel approaches, techniques and algorithms, they can be harvested for new 
information. The participants of the Asteroid Data Hunter challenge did just 
that, probing observations of the night sky for new asteroids that might have 
slipped through the software cracks the first time the images were 
analyzed," said Jose Luis Galache of the MPC. "Moreover, this software 
can now be used to analyze new images and is available to any observer who 
wants to use it. The Minor Planet Center applauds these efforts to provide 
superior tools to all, and looks forward to receiving new asteroid 
observations generated with them."

The desktop software application is free and can be used on any basic desktop 
or laptop computer. Amateur astronomers may take images from their telescopes 
and analyze them with the application. The application will tell the user 
whether a matching asteroid record exists and offer a way to report new 
findings to the Minor Planet Center, which then confirms and archives new 
discoveries.

Through NASA's asteroid initiative, the agency seeks to enhance its ongoing 
work in the identification and characterization of near-Earth objects for 
further scientific investigation. This work includes locating potentially 
hazardous asteroids and identifying those viable for redirection to a stable 
lunar orbit for future exploration by astronauts using NASA's Space Launch 
System rocket and Orion spacecraft. The Asteroid Grand Challenge, one part of 
the asteroid initiative, expands the agency's efforts beyond traditional 
boundaries and encourages partnerships and collaboration with a variety of 
organizations.

The algorithm contests were managed and executed by NASA's Center of 
Excellence for Collaborative Innovation (CoECI). CoECI was established at the 
request of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to advance 
NASA's open innovation efforts and extend that expertise to other federal 
agencies. CoECI uses the NASA Tournament Lab (NTL) for its advanced 
algorithmic and software development contests. Through its contract with the 
Crowd Innovation Lab at Harvard University, NTL uses Appirio's 
Crowdsourcing platform powered by Topcoder to enable a community of more than 
750,000 designers, developers and data scientists to create the most 
innovative, efficient and optimized solutions for specific, real-world 
challenges faced by NASA. Data storage of the Catalina Sky Survey data was 
provided by Amazon Web Services.

The new asteroid hunting application can be downloaded at:

http://topcoder.com/asteroids 

For information about NASA's Asteroid Grand Challenge, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/asteroidinitiative 

-end-

Sarah Ramsey
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1694
sarah.ramsey at nasa.gov