Transcript Data Mining for Near Earth Asteroids in the EuroNear Project

Data Mining for Near Earth
Asteroids in the EuroNear Project
What is Data Mining?
(and how does it work)
• Used for uncovering patterns in a data set
• Using large amounts of data in our search
• Searching for new items in an older database
• Successfully identifying objects of interest
• It was used in the
context of recovering
and precovering
asteroids
Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs)
• They are asteroids
with an orbit which
takes them close to
the Earth (less than
1.3 AU)
• These are larger than
50m in diameter
• Over 7000 NEAs are
known
• They survive for just a
few million years
Near Earth Asteroid Eros 433, photo
credit: NASA/JPL/JHUAPL
Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHOs)
• Considered potentially hazardous if its
minimum orbit intersection distance is less
than 0.05 AU
• Diameter is more than 150m
• Usually diameter is not always
accurately known
• Visual magnitude is used
Asteroid (4179)
Toutatis photo credit:
NASA/JPL/JHUAPL
What is EuroNear ?
• European Near Earth Asteroids Research
• A project to recover, precover, follow-up and
discover NEAs and PHAs
• Uses telescopes in both hemispheres, such as
INT, JKT 1m,ESO WFI (La Silla),
• Datamining activities
• Further information:
http://euronear.imcce.fr
Actual Work
• It involved data mining in the context of
EuroNear
• SkyBot was used to search for asteroids in the
database, either for precovery or recovery
• ESO/MPG WFI and INT WFC images (fits files)
in which the objects would appear were
downloaded and used
Actual Work - schematic
Image credit:
“EURONEAR: Data mining of asteroids and Near Earth Asteroids",
Vaduvescu, O. et al., 2009, Astron. Nachr. 330, 7, 698
Actual Work
• Using DS9, images corresponding to each CCD
from the telescopes camera were separated
• The field in which the object could be found
was identified
Astrometrica was used to
identify the field, the objects
within and then to search for
the asteroids by means of
visual inspection
Actual Work
An asteroid observed against the background starry sky
Actual Work
• With Astrometrica the position and
magnitude could be determined
• Some difficulties could appear:
• Distorted images
• Faint asteroids
• Prohibitive filters
• In case of long exposure times, the trail was
used to determine the angular speed
Actual Work
Determining position or
angular speed from one
long exposure
Head/Tail
Trail
Conclusions
• A great opportunity to witness first-hand how
research works
• Great opportunity to know other
astronomers, amateur and professional
• Experience and learning to use software such
as Astrometrica, DS9 and others