NASA Needs Asteroid Hunters – Join the $35,000 Asteroid Grand Challenge Contest Series

As part of its Asteroid Initiative, hoping to spot rogue asteroids headed for a collision with Earth, NASA is launching its first “Asteroid Grand Challenge Contest.” Over a 6 month period, $35,000 in awards will be given to individuals who develop improved algorithms that can be used to identify asteroids in images captured by ground-based telescopes.

According to a press release, NASA is working jointly with Planetary Resources Inc. of Bellevue, Washington on the contest series – which begins this month on March 17, 2014. To participate in the Asteroid hunting contest, individuals with an interest need to create an account on the Asteroid Grand Challenge contest series website, where they can also get more details on the contest.



Potential contestants can watch a video overview of the contest online at the web site as well. The video provides a simple introduction to the Asteroid Grand Challenge and its unique aspects. – See more at: http://www.topcoder.com/asteroids/

“For the past three years, NASA has been learning and advancing the ability to leverage distributed algorithm and coding skills through the NASA Tournament Lab to solve tough problems,” said Jason Crusan, NASA Tournament Lab director. “We are now applying our experience with algorithm contests to helping protect the planet from asteroid threats through image analysis.”

A winning solution must increase the detection sensitivity, minimize the number of false positives, ignore imperfections in the data, and run effectively on all computer systems.

“Protecting the planet from the threat of asteroid impact means first knowing where they are,” said Jenn Gustetic, Prizes and Challenges Program executive. “By opening up the search for asteroids, we are harnessing the potential of innovators and makers and citizen scientists everywhere to help solve this global challenge.”