A 600-foot long, ‘potentially hazardous’ near-Earth asteroid is the first discovery of a new algorithm

A newly-designed algorithm for discovering near-Earth asteroids, in its first, identified a "potentially hazardous asteroid," said the researchers from the University of Washington, in a statement.

The algorithm, which is called HelioLinc3D and was partially developed by researchers from the University of Washington, still is in its testing phase.

The "potentially hazardous" asteroid, which has been named 2022 SF289, is 600 feet long and was found while the algorithm was being tested in Hawaii. Scientists later confirmed that the asteroid "poses no risk to Earth for the foreseeable future."

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Eventually, the algorithm will be used at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, which is a survey telescope constructed in Chile. The observatory has multiple goals, which include mapping the Milky Way, probing dark energy and dark matter, and it is likely to begin operating in early 2025, according to the press release of the university.

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According to expectations, the observatory will "dramatically increase the discovery rate" of items like asteroids. The observatory will only require to look at spots twice per night in the night sky and not four times as needed in the case of telescopes, an advancement which means it can "scan the sky unprecedentedly quickly."

However, the new speed meant that a new type of discovery algorithm needed to be created by the researchers, because of which HelioLinc3D was eventually developed.

The algorithm will be able to find asteroids in Rubin's dataset, and the existing data was studied by the developers of the algorithm with too few observations to be usable by conventional algorithms.

'Potentially hazardous'asteroid 2022 SF289

This was one of those data sets through which the "potentially hazardous" asteroid 2022 SF289 was discovered by the algorithm.

Through older technology, the asteroid has been observed multiple times on different nights but because it was never observed four times in one night, hence, scientists failed to properly identify it.

The algorithm, by combining the multiple observations, made the discovery. In the additional observations, the discovery was confirmed and it was found that the closest approach of the asteroid will bring it within 140,000 miles of Earth's orbit, placing it closer than the moon.

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"This is just a small taste of what to expect with the Rubin Observatory in less than two years, when HelioLinc3D will be discovering an object like this every night," stated Rubin scientist Mario Juric, director of the DiRAC Institute, professor of astronomy at the University of Washington and leader of the team behind HelioLinc3D.

"But more broadly, it's a preview of the coming era of data-intensive astronomy. From HelioLinc3D to AI-assisted codes, the next decade of discovery will be a story of advancement in algorithms as much as in new, large, telescopes," Juric added.

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