Robert Jedicke (Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii)
Keywords: Pan-STARRS
Abstract:
A major Pan-STARRS goal is to survey potentially hazardous objects, where Pan-STARRS expects to achieve ~90% completion for objects >300m in diameter. Solar system surveying will take place in a search pattern, cadence and broadband filter optimized for detection of asteroids. In developing its software, the moving object processing system (MOPS) has created a synthetic solar system model (SSM) with over 10 million objects whose distributions of orbital characteristics match those expected for objects that Pan-STARRS would observe. The MOPS employs novel techniques in handling the computationally difficult problem of linking large numbers of unknown asteroids in a field of detections and verifies its correct operation by simulating the survey and subsequent discovery of synthetically generated objects.
We will describe the creation and verification of the Pan-STARRS MOPS SSM, demonstrate synthetic detections and observations by MOPS, describe MOPS asteroid linking techniques, describe the accuracy and throughput of the entire MOPS system, and provide predictions regarding the numbers and kinds of objects, including as yet undiscovered “extreme objects”, that MOPS expects to find over its 10-year lifetime.
Date of Conference: September 10-14, 2006
Track: Pan-STARRS