NASA Wants Your Help Hunting For Asteroids

An anonymous reader writes about new NASA software that can help you become an asteroid hunter. "Since the early 20th century, astronomers have relied on the same technique to detect asteroids — they take images of a section in the sky and look for star-like objects that move between frames. However, with an increase in sensitivity of ground-based telescopes, it has become increasingly difficult for astronomers to sift through the massive pile of data and verify every single detection. In order to increase the frequency of asteroid detection, including of those bodies that could be potential threats to our planet, NASA has released new software, developed in collaboration with Planetary Resources, Inc., capable of running on any standard PC. The software, which can be downloaded for free, will accept images from a telescope and run an algorithm on them to determine celestial bodies that are moving in a manner consistent with an asteroid."

Comments

Where can I download...

[tnk1]

Deep Impact @ Home?

Re:Asteroid at home?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cut 'em some slack, how else were they going to find a girlfriend?

They mis-spelled NSA

[popo]

Please accept this home software which will communicate directly with our servers in Fort Meade. We assure you it's just helping us look for asteroids.

Also, if you have moved the location of your Photos directory, please enter it's current location in the install wizard. Thanks for your help ... looking for asteroids.

Re:Do I get a cut...?

[itzly]

Only if you can land it gently.