14 DAY TRIAL // Officials with NASA and Planetary Resources, a private asteroid-mining company, announce that they will be providing $35,000 (€25,250) for members of the public who can develop one or more algorithms for detecting near-Earth objects (NEO) such as asteroids. The effort is part of a contest series called Asteroid Data Hunter.
The competition begins next Monday, on March 17, and will run until the end of August, officials with the NASA Tournament Lab announced recently, quoted by Space. The algorithms the public provides will have to be capable of using existing assets to monitor the space adjacent to Earth for any potentially-hazardous objects that may pose a threat to our planet.
“Protecting the planet from the threat of asteroid impact means first knowing where they are. By opening up the search for asteroids, we are harnessing the potential of innovators and makers and citizen scientists everywhere to help solve this global challenge,” says the leader of the NASA Prizes and Challenges Programs, Jenn Gustetic.
The type of algorithms NASA and Planetary Resources are calling for will have to be able to identify hazardous NEO in random images collected by telescopes on the ground. The winning code will have to yield as few false-positive results as possible, and it will need to be compatible with all platforms.