Despite constant doomsday headlines that life on Earth had to end several times over the past decade, the likelihood that asteroid the impact on our planet is extremely small. But it’s not null. Hence asteroid hunters they are constantly on the lookout. These are astronomers who analyze images taken by telescopes as part of research projects. NEO search (near-earth objects). The problem is that there are so many images to analyze that they can’t keep up, so in one of these projects they are looking for people who are ready to lend a helping hand to them.
Not required to have knowledge of astronomyWell, just an internet connection and a willingness to help. Anyone can become an asteroid hunter, and the more people who sign up, the better.
If these two paragraphs have already made you want to join, you just need to enter through this link and follow the instructions. But we will tell you a little more.
What does it take to become an asteroid hunter?
This citizen science work is part of the Catalina Sky Survey, a NASA-funded project by the University of Arizona aimed at track the night sky looking for objects believed to be asteroids.
The five telescopes that are part of the project take photographs that are analyzed in search of moving objects. Only those in which something moves in the first few minutes are loaded on the web page. However, the algorithm captures only the movement, it is not able to determine whether the moving body is really a celestial object or is it some kind of object. intervention. Therefore, they must be analyzed by human eyes.
So far this has been the work of astronomers, but they too many photos. On a moonless night, you can capture up to 10,000 objects. They need even more eyes, so any help from citizens is welcome. Anyone can become an asteroid hunter.
If you’re wrong, nothing happens: the more asteroid hunters, the better
The benefit of having many people involved is that you can achieve consensus. That is, if someone is mistaken in calling something an asteroid, then most likely most of the volunteers do not. For this reason, only results are taken that the vast majority of people agree with.
These results are then evaluated by astronomers. So far, only one phase of testing has been conducted, during which three volunteer asteroid hunters discovered 64 candidate sites. They were sent to Minor Planet Centerfrom the Smithsonian Institution of Astrophysics, and, in the absence of definitive results, does not seem to match anything previously found.
Astronomy lovers will be very pleased to take part in such a project. We tend to view Asteroid Hunters as weekend tabletop movies. A divorced father who, just during the weekend he had to take care of his two children, a girl and a teenage boy, also has to save the world from a collision with an asteroid that went unnoticed by telescopes. Now we can be any of us. Although, if you need to change the trajectory of an asteroid, it is better to entrust it to professionals. Regardless of your marital status.
Source: Hiper Textual
