![]() John Tonry and Larry Denneau, lead ATLAS astronomers, offered their data for a test. With Rubin still under construction, Heinze and Eggl wanted to test HelioLinc3D to see if it could discover a new asteroid in existing data, one with too few observations to be discovered by today's conventional algorithms. Working with Smithsonian senior astrophysicist and Harvard University lecturer Matthew Holman, who in 2018 pioneered a new class of heliocentric asteroid search algorithms, Heinze and Siegfried Eggl, a former University of Washington researcher who is now an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, developed HelioLinc3D: a code that could find asteroids in Rubin's dataset. Rubin's solar system software team at the University of Washington's DiRAC Institute has been working to just develop such codes. But with this novel observing "cadence," researchers need a new type of discovery algorithm to reliably spot space rocks. Rubin will scan the sky unprecedentedly quickly with its 8.4-meter mirror and massive 3,200-megapixel camera, visiting spots on the sky twice per night rather than the four times needed by present telescopes. Department of Energy, Rubin's observations will dramatically increase the discovery rate of PHAs. ![]() Rubin Observatory is set to join the hunt for these objects in early 2025. Scientists have discovered about 2,350 PHAs using this method, but estimate that at least as many more await discovery.įrom its peak in the Chilean Andes, the Vera C. A discovery is made when they notice a point of light moving unambiguously in a straight line over the image series. They do so by taking images of parts of the sky at least four times every night. Scientists search for PHAs using specialized telescope systems like the NASA-funded ATLAS survey, run by a team at the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy. Such "potentially hazardous asteroids," or PHAs, are systematically searched for and monitored to ensure they won't collide with Earth, a potentially devastating event. The closest of these - those with a trajectory that takes them within about 5 million miles of Earth's orbit, or about 20 times the distance from Earth to the moon - warrant special attention. Most of these bodies are distant, but a number orbit close to the Earth, and are known as near-Earth objects, or NEOs. ![]() These objects remain from an era over four billion years ago, when the planets in our system formed and took their present-day positions. ![]() The solar system is home to tens of millions of rocky bodies ranging from small asteroids not larger than a few feet, to dwarf planets the size of our moon. "By demonstrating the real-world effectiveness of the software that Rubin will use to look for thousands of yet-unknown potentially hazardous asteroids, the discovery of 2022 SF289 makes us all safer," said Rubin scientist Ari Heinze, the principal developer of HelioLinc3D and a researcher at the University of Washington. ![]()
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