Asteroid Science in the Era of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope

Executive Summary

We will develop a moving-object detection algorithm for large astronomical surveys that will enable the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (a wide-view instrument that can photograph the entire available sky) to identify asteroid populations missed with traditional surveys. This supports our national security mission and space security initiative by building capabilities to characterize orbits for dangerous asteroids and is vitally important for planetary defense and solar system science.

Publications, Presentations, and Patents

Lifset, Noah, Nathan Golovich, Eric Green, Robert Armstrong, and Travis Yeager. “A Search for L4 Earth Trojan Asteroids Using a Novel Track-before-Detect Multiepoch Pipeline.” The Astronomical Journal 161, no. 6 (2021): 282. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/abf7af.