Series: Astronomy Colloquium
Date: Wednesday 18-Nov-2020
Time: 16:00-17:00 (4:00-5:00 pm)
Location: Online Zoom Only: Contact Lori Feaga for URL
Speaker: Prof. Carrie Nugent (Olin College)
Title: "A NEATer asteroid survey: Reprocessing the NEAT dataset"
An asteroid impact is the only natural disaster we have the technology to prevent. But prevention takes time, meaning that we need to discover and track near‐Earth asteroids now. This talk will give an overview on asteroids and my asteroid discovery research with undergraduates at Olin College and Dr. Gerbs Bauer at UMD.
Currently, we are working with archived data from the Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) survey. NEAT operated from 1995 to 2007, discovered 41,227 minor planets, and reported observations of 258 comets. Along with Spacewatch, NEAT pioneered techniques used by major asteroid surveys today. To date, only three projects (Linear, Spacewatch, and the Mt. Lemmon Survey) have discovered more minor planets, according to the Minor Planet Center.
However, NEAT operated within the technological constraints of its time, and in the intervening years there have been significant advancements in computer hardware and data analysis tools. We apply these improvements to extract new detections from the dataset. When complete, we estimate we will double the number of detections from the NEAT data. Processing is done using the Deep Thought supercomputer at Olin College.
Colloquia for the Fall 2020 semester will be held on zoom. Contact Prof. Alberto Bolatto for details.
Colloquium Organizer:
Prof. Alberto Bolatto
Special accommodations for individuals with disabilities can be made by calling (301) 405-3001. It would be appreciated if we are notified at least one week in advance.
