Data Mining for Near Earth Asteroids in the EuroNear Project

Used for uncovering patterns in a data set Using large amounts of data in our search Searching for new items in an older database Successfully identifying objects of interest It was used in the context of recovering and precovering asteroids What is Data Mining? (and how does it work)

Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) They are asteroids with an orbit which takes them close to the Earth (less than 1.3 AU) These are larger than 50m in diameter Over 7000 NEAs are known They survive for just a few million years Near Earth Asteroid Eros 433, photo credit: NASA/JPL/JHUAPL

Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHOs) Considered potentially hazardous if its minimum orbit intersection distance is less than 0.05 AU Diameter is more than 150m Usually diameter is not always accurately known Visual magnitude is used Asteroid (4179) Toutatis photo credit: NASA/JPL/JHUAPL(4179) Toutatis

What is EuroNear ? European Near Earth Asteroids Research A project to recover, precover, follow-up and discover NEAs and PHAs Uses telescopes in both hemispheres, such as INT, JKT 1m,ESO WFI (La Silla), Datamining activities Further information:

Actual Work It involved data mining in the context of EuroNear SkyBot was used to search for asteroids in the database, either for precovery or recovery ESO/MPG WFI and INT WFC images (fits files) in which the objects would appear were downloaded and used

Actual Work - schematic Image credit: “EURONEAR: Data mining of asteroids and Near Earth Asteroids", Vaduvescu, O. et al., 2009, Astron. Nachr. 330, 7, 698

Using DS9, images corresponding to each CCD from the telescopes camera were separated The field in which the object could be found was identified Actual Work Astrometrica was used to identify the field, the objects within and then to search for the asteroids by means of visual inspection

Actual Work An asteroid observed against the background starry sky

Actual Work With Astrometrica the position and magnitude could be determined Some difficulties could appear: Distorted images Faint asteroids Prohibitive filters In case of long exposure times, the trail was used to determine the angular speed

Actual Work Trail Head/Tail Determining position or angular speed from one long exposure

Conclusions A great opportunity to witness first-hand how research works Great opportunity to know other astronomers, amateur and professional Experience and learning to use software such as Astrometrica, DS9 and others