Asteroid Automatic Archive Alert System (4AS)
National Aeronautics and Space Administration Yearly Opportunities for Research in Planetary Defense
Project Description
Goals & Objectives:
The primary goal of this proposal is to develop the Asteroid Automatic Archive Alert System (4AS). 4AS is composed of two different pieces of software. The first is the automatic alert system that will search public archives for possible images that could obtain near-Earth asteroid (NEA) observations. The second piece of software automatically downloads, processes, and presents those images to a human for review for possible recovery observations.
Approach and Methodology:
New near-Earth objects (NEOs) are discovered and receive arc extension daily. Each time an NEO arc is extended, it presents a situation where public archive observations could be utilized to extend the orbital arc and provide characterization observations. However, the primary challenge is searching through these vast archives and being able to process the available data. To accomplish this, two pieces of software are needed. First, using the MPC database, every time a NEO orbit receives an arc extension, a local copy of FindOrb will calculate the orbit backward in time and cross reference public archives telescope pointing metadata. Once a possible dataset has been identified, the data analysis piece of code will automatically download and photometrically calibrate the data. Once the data has passed the astrometric and photometric calibration steps, it will be presented to a human for confirmation and analysis. The software will package and submit ADES observations to the Minor Planet Center if the asteroid is found.
