Help wanted: NASA looking for coders to hunt dangerous asteroids

In an effort to better its asteroid identifier program, NASA has launched “Asteroid Data Hunter,” a contest that will shell out $35,000 to programmers who can identify asteroids captured by Earth-based telescopes.

There are a couple of prerequesites that must be met in order for the developer to take home the check. For one, the winning solution must increase the detection rate and minimize the number of false positives.

Also, the new code must 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 program.

“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.”

Scientists have become increasingly louder of late in calling for help to make sense of all the many data sets that are being thrown at them. What’s more, according to asteroid mining firm Planetary Resources, which has partnered with NASA on this program, current detection programs are only able to track roughly one percent of the (estimated) objects rotating the sun.

The Asteroid Data Hunter challenge falls under NASA’S larger asteroid initiative, which the agency has set up as a means for enhancing its ongoing work in identifying and characterizing near-Earth object for further scientific investigation. This include locating not only potentially hazardous asteroids, but identifying those that can be redirected to a stable lunar orbit for exploration by astronauts.

Story via: nasa.gov