The discovery of 2022 SF289, that it poses no risk to the Earth in the foreseeable future, confirms that the next-generation algorithm, known as HelioLinc3D, can identify near-Earth asteroids with fewer observations and generally less data than current methods require.
From HelioLinc3D to AI-assisted codes, the next decade of discovery will be a story of breakthroughs in both algorithms and large new telescopes.
This, because the rocky bodies found in space are the reason for constant surveillance by university researchers and affiliated entities such as NASA.
In the case of ‘potentially dangerous’ asteroids such as 2022 SF289, which orbit close to Earth, the closest ones have a trajectory that places them about 8 million kilometers from Earth’s orbit, that is, about 20 times the distance of the Earth. Earth to the Moon.
The collision of any of them against our planet could be devastating, so keeping an eye on them is a priority.
The goal, according to the press release, is to scan the sky at unprecedented speed with its 8.4-meter mirror and huge 3,200-megapixel camera, visiting points in the sky twice a night instead of the four times they need. modern telescopes.
Added to this is Artificial Intelligence. HelioLinc3D, a code that could find asteroids in the Rubin data set.
This software has already been tested by discovering the new asteroid in existing data, but it had too few observations to be discovered by current conventional algorithms.
“Any survey will have a hard time discovering objects like 2022 SF289 that are close to their sensitivity limit, but HelioLinc3D shows that it is possible to recover these faint objects as long as they are visible for several nights,” Denneau said. “This gives us a ‘bigger and better’ telescope.”
Its 200-meter diameter is large enough to be classified as “potentially dangerous.” But despite its proximity, projections indicate that it does not pose any danger of colliding with Earth in the foreseeable future.
Its discovery has been announced in the Minor Planet Electronic Circular MPEC 2023-O26 of the International Astronomical Union.
“This is just a small sample of what to expect with the Rubin Observatory in less than two years, when HelioLinc3D discovers an object like this every night,” said Rubin scientist Mario Jurić, director of the DiRAC Institute, professor of astronomy at the University of Washington and leader of the team behind HelioLinc3D.
“But more broadly, it is a preview of the next era of data-intensive astronomy.” From HelioLinc3D to AI-assisted codes, the next decade of discovery will be a story of breakthroughs both in algorithms and in new, large telescopes,” he noted.
The Rubin Observatory is financially supported by the US National Science Foundation, the US Department of Energy, and private funding obtained by the LSST Corporation.
