2022 SF289: Novel Code Ensnares its First Potentially Hazardous Asteroid

An asteroid discovery algorithm developed for the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s upcoming Legacy Survey of Space and Time has identified its first “potentially hazardous” asteroid, PHA. PHAs are objects with a potential to make threatening close approaches to the Earth. The roughly 600-foot-long asteroid, designated 2022 SF289, was discovered during a test drive of the algorithm with the ATLAS survey in Hawaii. Finding 2022 SF289, which poses no risk to Earth for the foreseeable future, confirms that the next-generation algorithm, known as HelioLinc3D, can identify near-Earth asteroids with fewer and more dispersed observations than required by today’s methods. Ari Heinze (DiRAC/Rubin Observatory), Siegfried Eggl (UIUC/Rubin Observatory), Joachim Moeyens (DiRAC/Rubin Observatory/B612 Asteroid Institute) and Mario Juric (DiRAC/Rubin Observatory). Video by Nikolina Horvat (DiRAC) and Joachim Moeyens. Identification made using HelioLinc3D (). ZTF observations recovered using ADAM::Precovery (). Visualizations using the OpenSpace Project () DiRAC Institute: Rubin Observatory: ATLAS Survey: Potentially Hazardous Asteroids: