NASA has created new asteroid detection software – and you can download it for free
Do you have a telescope? Do you want to help NASA identify asteroids near Earth?
Last year, NASA held a competition, the Asteroid Data Hunter challenge, where participants could develop improved algorithms to identify asteroids in images taken from ground-based telescopes.
Using the algorithms submitted to them, they’ve created an application to detect asteroids near Earth, identifying possible threats and resource opportunities. Anyone who can take pictures through their telescope can use this application to analyze the images they take against an immense database of near-Earth objects.
NASA hopes that having more eyes on the sky will help to get a more complete picture of space around us. “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.
You can download this application for free here: http://www.topcoder.com/asteroids/