Can Artificial Intelligence Save Us From Asteroidal Armageddon?

NASA'S Planetary Defense Coordination Office uses the Catalina Sky Survey facility in Tucson, Arizona, to catalog space objects Even in this age of high-speed data analysis, a keen human eye normally can't be beaten when poring over images of potential asteroidal impactors. But Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) could soon change all that. The El Segundo, Calif.-based Aerospace Corporation is now testing A.I. software designed to help astronomers speed up the process of identifying and tracking threatening Near-Earth Objects (NEOs). NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office already uses numerous telescopes to find and monitor NEOs that might have the potential to impact Earth. But the non-profit Aerospace Corporation's A.I. team is working with NASA on implementing software dubbed NEO AID (Near-Earth Object Artificial Intelligence Detection) to differentiate false positives from asteroids and comets that might be real threats.