DART: NASA's Defense System Against Asteroids Uses Clever Algorithm to Predict Incoming Threat

The new technique enhances NASA JPL's Center for Near Earth Object Studies' ability to analyze the impact danger of asteroids approaching our planet.

The Sentry would then advance the clock, keeping an eye on the "virtual asteroids" as they orbited the Sun to see if any came close to Earth in the future. If that's the case, more computations would be needed to "zoom in" on whether any intermediate points may collide with Earth, and if so, what the impact probability would be.

Sentry-II, on the other hand, follows a different concept. The new method generates tens of thousands of random points without making assumptions about how the uncertainty zone will grow; instead, it picks random points from throughout the uncertainty region. Sentry-algorithm II then asks, "What are the probable orbits that may impact Earth inside the full zone of uncertainty?"

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