We found our first potentially hazardous asteroid, 2022 SF289, using the HelioLinC3D code that will power @VRubinObs's LSST survey!! Written by @uwdirac's Ari Heinze, the new code can identify asteroids with half the observations as needed before. . 🧵 👇 Tweet added by Mario Juric @mjuric | Pikagi

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@mjuric

Mario Juric

11 months

We found our first potentially hazardous asteroid, 2022 SF289, using the HelioLinC3D code that will power @VRubinObs 's LSST survey!! Written by @uwdirac 's Ari Heinze, the new code can identify asteroids with half the observations as needed before. . 🧵 👇

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@mjuric

Mario Juric

11 months

@VRubinObs @uwdirac The solar system is home to millions of rocky bodies ranging from small asteroids a few feet in diameter, to dwarf planets the size of our moon. These objects remain from an era over four billion years ago, when the planets formed.

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Painted Stone: Asteroids in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, by Alex...

This animation shows the orbital motions of over 100,000 of the asteroids observed by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), with colors illustrating the compo...

www.youtube.com

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@mjuric

Mario Juric

11 months

@VRubinObs @uwdirac Most of them are distant, but a number orbit close to the Earth. These are known as Near-Earth Objects (NEOs). The closest of these - whose trajectories takes them within ~5 million miles of the Earth's orbit - warrant special attention.

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Near-Earth object - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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@mjuric

Mario Juric

11 months

@VRubinObs @uwdirac The large, very nearby, objects are known as "Potentially Hazardous Asteroids" (PHAs). They're systematically searched for and monitored to ensure they won’t collide with the Earth. Such an impact would make for a /really/ bad day (or a millennium)...

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Potentially hazardous object - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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@mjuric

Mario Juric

11 months

@VRubinObs @uwdirac Astronomers search for PHAs using specialized telescope systems. The @NASA -funded @atlas_ifa survey, run by a team at @UHIfA , is a prime example.

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@mjuric

Mario Juric

11 months

@VRubinObs @uwdirac @NASA @atlas_ifa @UHIfA To find asteroids, ATLAS takes images of parts of the sky at least four times every night. A discovery is made when they notice a point of light moving unambiguously in a straight line over the image series.

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@mjuric

Mario Juric

11 months

@VRubinObs @uwdirac @NASA @atlas_ifa @UHIfA From its peak in the Chilean Andes, the @VRubinObs is set to join the asteroid hunt in early 2025. Funded primarily by the @NSF and the @DOEScience , it will be the largest optical sky survey in history of astronomy.

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Vera C. Rubin Observatory

Named after American astronomer Vera C. Rubin and nearing completion in Chile, Rubin Observatory will soon begin an ambitious 10-year survey of the southern sky

rubinobservatory.org

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@mjuric

Mario Juric

11 months

@VRubinObs @uwdirac @NASA @atlas_ifa @UHIfA @NSF @doescience Rubin’s observations will dramatically increase the discovery rate of PHAs. With an 8.4-meter mirror and the massive 3,200-megapixel LSSTCam camera, @VRubinObs ' Simonyi Survey Telescope will scan the sky unprecedentedly quickly.

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@mjuric

Mario Juric

11 months

@VRubinObs @uwdirac @NASA @atlas_ifa @UHIfA @NSF @doescience To be even more efficient, it will visit spots on the sky just twice each night rather than the four times needed by present telescopes. But with this novel observing cadence, we need a new type of discovery algorithm to reliably spot space rocks.

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@mjuric

Mario Juric

11 months

@VRubinObs @uwdirac @NASA @atlas_ifa @UHIfA @NSF @doescience This is where our group at @uwdirac comes in. Working with @CenterForAstro 's Matthew Holman, @UW 's Ari Heinze and Siegfried Eggl (now faculty at @UofIllinois ) develped just such a code -- HelioLinc3D.

GitHub - lsst-dm/heliolinc2: Solar System Processing using HelioLinC2 algorithm

Solar System Processing using HelioLinC2 algorithm - lsst-dm/heliolinc2

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@mjuric

Mario Juric

11 months

@VRubinObs @uwdirac @NASA @atlas_ifa @UHIfA @NSF @doescience @CenterForAstro @UW @UofIllinois The big deal about HelioLinc3D is that it can identify asteroids with much fewer (up to 50%) and more dispersed observations than required by today’s methods. It's just what @VRubinObs needs!

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@mjuric

Mario Juric

11 months

@VRubinObs @uwdirac @NASA @atlas_ifa @UHIfA @NSF @doescience @CenterForAstro @UW @UofIllinois But with Rubin still under construction, we wanted to test HelioLinc3D to see if it could discover a new asteroid in existing data. Ideally one with too few observations to be discovered by today’s conventional algorithms.

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@mjuric

Mario Juric

11 months

@VRubinObs @uwdirac @NASA @atlas_ifa @UHIfA @NSF @doescience @CenterForAstro @UW @UofIllinois John Tonry and Larry Denneau, lead @atlas_ifa astronomers, offered their observations for a test. Ari set HelioLinc3D to search through them and on July 18, 2023 it spotted its first PHA: 2022 SF289.

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@mjuric

Mario Juric

11 months

@VRubinObs @uwdirac @NASA @atlas_ifa @UHIfA @NSF @doescience @CenterForAstro @UW @UofIllinois In retrospect, ATLAS had observed 2022 SF289 three times on four separate nights, with a first image on September 19, 2022 at a distance of 13 million miles. But it never got the requisite four images in one night to identify it.

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@mjuric

Mario Juric

11 months

@VRubinObs @uwdirac @NASA @atlas_ifa @UHIfA @NSF @doescience @CenterForAstro @UW @UofIllinois These are just the occasions where HelioLinc3D excels as it only needs two images per night. Our code successfully combined fragments of data from all four nights and made the discovery.

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@mjuric

Mario Juric

11 months

@VRubinObs @uwdirac @NASA @atlas_ifa @UHIfA @NSF @doescience @CenterForAstro @UW @UofIllinois Other surveys had also missed 2022 SF289. Passing in front of the rich starfields of the Milky Way, it was a difficult object to catch. Now knowing where to look, additional observations from @PanSTARRS1 and @catalina_sky quickly confirmed the discovery.

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@mjuric

Mario Juric

11 months

@VRubinObs @uwdirac @NASA @atlas_ifa @UHIfA @NSF @doescience @CenterForAstro @UW @UofIllinois @PanSTARRS1 @catalina_sky And to complete the picture, @moeyensj used @b612foundation 's Asteroid Institute's fantastic ADAM::Precovery service to uncover further unrecognized observations from the @NSF -supported @ztfsurvey telescope!

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@mjuric

Mario Juric

11 months

@VRubinObs @uwdirac @NASA @atlas_ifa @UHIfA @NSF @doescience @CenterForAstro @UW @UofIllinois @PanSTARRS1 @catalina_sky @moeyensj @b612foundation @ztfsurvey 2022 SF289 is classified as an Apollo-type NEO. Its closest approach brings it within 140,000 miles of Earth's orbit, closer than the moon. Its diameter of 600ft is large enough to be classified as potentially hazardous.

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@mjuric

Mario Juric

11 months

@VRubinObs @uwdirac @NASA @atlas_ifa @UHIfA @NSF @doescience @CenterForAstro @UW @UofIllinois @PanSTARRS1 @catalina_sky @moeyensj @b612foundation @ztfsurvey Scary nomenclature aside, it poses no danger of hitting Earth for the foreseeable future. Its discovery has been announced in the @MinorPlanetCtr 's Minor Planet Electronic Circular MPEC 2023-O26.

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@mjuric

Mario Juric

11 months

@VRubinObs @uwdirac @NASA @atlas_ifa @UHIfA @NSF @doescience @CenterForAstro @UW @UofIllinois @PanSTARRS1 @catalina_sky @moeyensj @b612foundation @ztfsurvey @MinorPlanetCtr Currently, we know of 2,350 PHAs but expect there are more than 3,000 yet to be found. This is a small taste of what to expect with @VRubinObs in less than two years, when HelioLinc3D will be discovering an object like this every night (!!).

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@mjuric

Mario Juric

11 months

@VRubinObs @uwdirac @NASA @atlas_ifa @UHIfA @NSF @doescience @CenterForAstro @UW @UofIllinois @PanSTARRS1 @catalina_sky @moeyensj @b612foundation @ztfsurvey @MinorPlanetCtr But also, it is a story the critical importance of algorithms and software in modern astronomy. From HelioLinc3D to AI-assisted codes, the codes @uwdirac and others are developing now power discoveries as much as new, large, telescopes.

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@mjuric

Mario Juric

11 months

@VRubinObs @uwdirac @NASA @atlas_ifa @UHIfA @NSF @doescience @CenterForAstro @UW @UofIllinois @PanSTARRS1 @catalina_sky @moeyensj @b612foundation @ztfsurvey @MinorPlanetCtr To learn more, read: HelioLinc3D: DiRAC: Rubin Observatory: New algorithm ensnares its first ‘potentially hazardous’ asteroid:

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New algorithm ensnares its first ‘potentially hazardous’ asteroid

An asteroid discovery algorithm — designed to uncover near-Earth asteroids for the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s upcoming 10-year survey of the night sky — has identified its first “potentially...

www.washington.edu

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@mjuric

Mario Juric

11 months

@VRubinObs @uwdirac @NASA @atlas_ifa @UHIfA @NSF @doescience @CenterForAstro @UW @UofIllinois @PanSTARRS1 @catalina_sky @moeyensj @b612foundation @ztfsurvey @MinorPlanetCtr Or view our explainer video at

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2022 SF289: Novel Code Ensnares its First Potentially Hazardous...

An asteroid discovery algorithm developed for the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s upcoming Legacy Survey of Space and Time has identified its first “potentially ...

www.youtube.com

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