Have an idea for an asteroid algorithm? Submit it to NASA's Asteroid Data Hunter contest series beginning Monday a press release reported.
"For the past three years, NASA has been learning and advancing the ability to leverage distributed algorithm and coding skills through the NASA Tournament Lab to solve tough problems," Jason Crusan, director at NASA's tournament lab said in a statement. "We are now applying our experience with algorithm contests to helping protect the planet from asteroid threats through image analysis."
NASA is collaborating with Planetary Resources, a company that looks for asteroids out of Bellevue, Wash. for the start of the series. People can find asteroids in photos taken by telescopes on earth. The organizations will choose the answer that reduces the asteroids amount of fake positives, disregards abnormalities with scientific information, and operates smoothly across all computerized platforms the press release reported.
"Protecting the planet from the threat of asteroid impact means first knowing where they are," Jenn Gustetic, Prizes and Challenges Program executive said in a statement. "By opening up the search for asteroids, we are harnessing the potential of innovators and makers and citizen scientists everywhere to help solve this global challenge."
"Current asteroid detection initiatives are only tracking one percent of the estimated objects that orbit the Sun. We are excited to partner with NASA in this contest to help increase the quantity and knowledge about asteroids that are potential threats, human destinations, or resource rich," Chris Lewicki, president and chief Engineer at Planetary Resources said in a statement. "Applying distributed algorithm and coding skills to the extensive NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey data set will yield important insights into the state of the art in detecting asteroids."
Those interested must do some homework and make an account on the website for the series, along with reading up on guidelines associated with participating and the various aspects.
