Help NASA find new asteroids, install Asteroid Data Hunter

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    Asteroid Data Hunter is software developed for NASA to automatically search for asteroids, reports Theverge . You can download and install this software here . The program is absolutely free and works under the OS of the family of Windows 7.1 and higher, or on Mac OS 10.10.2 and higher. Also in development is an installation package for Ubuntu. This is an Open Source project, its code is available to everyone on GitHub .

    Since ancient times, celestial bodies were found using long-term observations of certain parts of the sky. Planets, asteroids and comets in the solar system look like stars moving with a certain trajectory, which allows them to be distinguished from real stars. Over the centuries, this principle has not changed. Now, when searching for asteroids, many pictures are taken of a certain part of the sky, and after that they are analyzed for the presence of moving objects. It is believed that already about 90% of the starry sky of the northern hemisphere has been studied in terms of searching for asteroids in the space around the earth, the situation with the southern one is slightly worse, but work continues.

    Asteroid Data Hunter software will download images from telescopes and analyze them for objects that move like asteroids. The main achievement of the new program is that it can detect 15% more asteroids in the zone between Mars and Jupiter than its predecessors.

    The algorithm can not only recognize new objects, but also compare data about new asteroids with information about those that are approaching the Earth. Also, the application allows any amateur astronomer to check their images for the presence of asteroids and, when they are found, send information to NASA servers.

    This program is extremely useful for NASA, as it will allow you to keep in sight a larger number of asteroids approaching our common home. The data obtained can help in predicting threats, as well as in choosing objects for subsequent missions to study these celestial bodies, if we want to extract minerals from asteroids in the future.

    According to information from the developers, Asteroid Data Hunter will work with an accuracy of 80-90%, which will detect several thousand new objects per year.

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