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11th March 2014, 21:35
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11 March 2014 Last updated at 17:27
Nasa seeks coders to hunt asteroids
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/73508000/jpg/_73508351_73508350.jpg
Artist conception of dwarf planet Ceres in the main asteroid belt Better code could help identify where asteroids are heading
Continue reading the main story
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Citizen science is the new black
US space agency Nasa is seeking coders who could help prevent a global catastrophe by
identifying asteroids that may crash into Earth.Its Asteroid Data Hunter contest will
offer $35,000 (£21,000) to programmers who can identify asteroids captured by ground-
based telescopes.The winning solution must increase the detection rate and minimise
the number of false positives.Scientists are increasingly calling for help to make sense
of vast data sets.The new improved asteroid hunting code must also be able to ignore
imperfections in the data and run on all computer systems.
"Protecting the planet from the threat of asteroid impact means first knowing where
they are," said Jenn Gustetic, executive of the programme.
"By opening up the search for asteroids, we are harnessing the potential of innovators
and makers and citizen scientists everywhere to solve this global challenge."
Current asteroid detection is only tracking one percent of the estimated objects that
orbit the sun, according to asteroid mining firm Planetary Resources, which is partnering
with Nasa in the contest.
Human curiosity
Zooniverse is one of the leading online platforms for citizen scientists, working on a
range of projects including classifying galaxies.
In February it racked up one million volunteers.
"Nasa takes these detailed pictures but there is a lot of noise out there from stars and
other things and we need to write code that can find patterns in the data," said
Zooniverse team member Robert Simpson.
"This is not necessarily Nasa's area of expertise. It is a technology problem rather than
a space problem."
He thinks that increasingly citizen scientists can contribute to important scientific
discoveries and breakthroughs.
"Computers don't have curiosity. People often find things in the data that computers
can't," he told the BBC.
"We are creating these huge data sets but we don't have enough scientists to analyse
them," he added.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-26528516
http://static.bbci.co.uk/frameworks/barlesque/2.60.1/desktop/3.5/img/blq-blocks_grey_alpha.png
11 March 2014 Last updated at 17:27
Nasa seeks coders to hunt asteroids
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/73508000/jpg/_73508351_73508350.jpg
Artist conception of dwarf planet Ceres in the main asteroid belt Better code could help identify where asteroids are heading
Continue reading the main story
Related Stories
Kepler bags huge haul of planets
Biggest asteroid vents water vapour
Citizen science is the new black
US space agency Nasa is seeking coders who could help prevent a global catastrophe by
identifying asteroids that may crash into Earth.Its Asteroid Data Hunter contest will
offer $35,000 (£21,000) to programmers who can identify asteroids captured by ground-
based telescopes.The winning solution must increase the detection rate and minimise
the number of false positives.Scientists are increasingly calling for help to make sense
of vast data sets.The new improved asteroid hunting code must also be able to ignore
imperfections in the data and run on all computer systems.
"Protecting the planet from the threat of asteroid impact means first knowing where
they are," said Jenn Gustetic, executive of the programme.
"By opening up the search for asteroids, we are harnessing the potential of innovators
and makers and citizen scientists everywhere to solve this global challenge."
Current asteroid detection is only tracking one percent of the estimated objects that
orbit the sun, according to asteroid mining firm Planetary Resources, which is partnering
with Nasa in the contest.
Human curiosity
Zooniverse is one of the leading online platforms for citizen scientists, working on a
range of projects including classifying galaxies.
In February it racked up one million volunteers.
"Nasa takes these detailed pictures but there is a lot of noise out there from stars and
other things and we need to write code that can find patterns in the data," said
Zooniverse team member Robert Simpson.
"This is not necessarily Nasa's area of expertise. It is a technology problem rather than
a space problem."
He thinks that increasingly citizen scientists can contribute to important scientific
discoveries and breakthroughs.
"Computers don't have curiosity. People often find things in the data that computers
can't," he told the BBC.
"We are creating these huge data sets but we don't have enough scientists to analyse
them," he added.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-26528516