Asteroids@home: Difference between revisions
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Light curve inversion is a mathematical technique used to model the surfaces of rotating objects from their brightness variations. However, data from the surveys which serve as input data are often ''sparse in time'', which means that the rotation period - the basic physical parameter - cannot be estimated from the data easily. Contrary to classical light curves where the period is "visible" in the data, a wide interval of all possible periods has to be scanned densely when analyzing sparse data. This enormously enlarges the computational time, with the result that the only practical way to efficiently handle photometry of hundreds of thousands of asteroids is to use distributed computing.[https://asteroidsathome.net/] | Light curve inversion is a mathematical technique used to model the surfaces of rotating objects from their brightness variations. However, data from the surveys which serve as input data are often ''sparse in time'', which means that the rotation period - the basic physical parameter - cannot be estimated from the data easily. Contrary to classical light curves where the period is "visible" in the data, a wide interval of all possible periods has to be scanned densely when analyzing sparse data. This enormously enlarges the computational time, with the result that the only practical way to efficiently handle photometry of hundreds of thousands of asteroids is to use distributed computing.[https://asteroidsathome.net/] | ||
The Asteroids@home applications that are distributed by '''''[[wikipedia:Berkeley_Open_Infrastructure_for_Network_Computing|Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC)]],''''' employ photometric measurements of asteroids from observed data. The results are mathematical asteroid models with the direction of the spin axis and the rotation period. This is important data to document for asteroids in our solar system. | The Asteroids@home applications that are distributed by '''''[[wikipedia:Berkeley_Open_Infrastructure_for_Network_Computing|Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC)]],''''' employ photometric measurements of asteroids from observed data. The results are mathematical asteroid models with the direction of the spin axis and the rotation period. This is important data to document for asteroids in our solar system. Our future may depend on it. | ||
== Project team / Sponsors == | == Project team / Sponsors == | ||