Investigating Rubin’s sensitivity to Earth approaching asteroids

Professor: Tim Lister

Description: Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) are asteroids which can approach and potentially impact the Earth, and finding them with as much warning time as possible is vital to understanding the potential risk. NEO surveys, such as the new Rubin Observatory, have a search volume to the side and away from the Earth that looks like a “candle flame” and contains a lot of detail about both the survey’s detection ability and astronomical info on the asteroids themselves. Using early Rubin data in the Data Previews and reported asteroid discoveries, we will try to measure Rubin’s effectiveness at detecting small NEOs that could threaten the Earth.

Preferred Qualifications: Python programming preferred