Killer Asteroids Are Hiding in Plain Sight.A New Tool Helps Spot Them

What is the News?

A former NASA astronaut has developed a tool that could help us find killer asteroids. 

What is the tool developed to detect killer asteroids?

The tool developed doesn’t rely on a new telescope or even new observations. Instead, it looked at older images stored in the digital archives at the National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory(NOIRLAB). 

Then, the researchers let the algorithm get to work searching 412,000 different images. The goal was to separate out possible killer asteroids from over 68 billion dots of cosmic light showcased in the images.

In essence, the researchers developed a way to discover what has already been seen but not noticed.

Note: Killer asteroids, simply mean that they are asteroids capable of killing thousands, if not millions, were they to impact the Earth. It does not necessarily mean that they are on a collision course for Earth.

Source: The post is based on the article “Killer Asteroids Are Hiding in Plain Sight. A New Tool Helps Spot Them” published in Indian Express on 1st June 2022.