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Historically the study of the physical properties of minor bodies in our solar system was done doing planned ground-based observations. In the last 20 years the space telescope also was used to this kind of studies. Telescopes likes Hubble, Spitzer, Wise or Herschel were used. Then, most recently, large ground-based and space-based stars and/or galaxies surveys were planned with diverse objectives but were used by the minor bodies community to study the background minor bodies. That means, the telescope was pointing to a field of view to study some galaxy, star cluster or specific star and diverse minor bodies can be identified and studied in that pointing.
The first large data release of minor bodies published using this technique was the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Moving Object Catalog. The catalog lists astrometric and photometric data for moving objects observed during the Survey.
The advantage of these kind of data is that there are ready to use in the databases where the survey’s team applied the pipeline to extract the data from the observations. Other current examples of this kind of catalogues are: Wise, Kepler 2, Tess and in a near future the LSST.
Another huge source of data are the ground-based observations, where again, are planned with diverse objectives and a minor body can be found in the background. We want to extract the information on these minor bodies that appears on the images that were not planned to observe these bodies.
Our group has extensive experience in ground-based observations on minor bodies, asteroids and trans-neptunian bodies (TNOs). We have expertise on determining rotational periods, shapes and pole direction. With a large time-spam in the observation we can determine the 3D shape of the body and also infer if they have rings or albedo variations on the surface. We participated in the discovery of the rings of the centaur Chariklo and TNO Haumea.
Using observations with large time spam, on particular minor bodies, our group were able to identify the 3D shape of TNOs like Varuna, analyze the presence of rings around centaurs, create a database of absolute magnitudes that can be converted to diameters, search for new unidentified objects, and the study of many more physical properties.
The candidate person needs to have experience with computer science and be capable of analyze many Terabytes of astronomical images to extract the sources fluxes, shape and position and transform it to astrometry and photometry of the sources, using an existing computing cluster. All the work must be done in automatic way and using parallel computing. Astronomical images are arrays that can be processed and extract the information. The main idea of this proposal is to extract the information from astronomical images from different observatories and refer them to the same standard, for example the Sloan filters. The plan is to extract from the images, the position, shape and fluxes of all the sources, stars and minor bodies, to make a registration on variability of the sources. Our group has been observing along years and we have a Terabytes of data on astronomical images. We are planning also to use all the Observatorio de Sierra Nevada images.
Also, will combine this information with the one present in different databases of ground- based and space telescopes like SDSS-MOC, Wise, K2 or Tess. The interpretation of the data for individual bodies and as a population will be done with the help of the working group. The thesis will consist on the implementation of an automatic way to analyze many type of astronomical images, different telescopes, and extract the information on minor bodies. In summary, the work is to analyze a set of different inhomogeneous databases and solve the problem of cross-matching, and generate a homogeneous database of all asteroids observed either from the ground or from space. On the other hand, combine this information with the one present on existing database and make the physical interpretation, as individual objects or as asteroids/TNOs populations.
It will be valued the knowledge in: python (design of graphical user interfaces), source detection on images, machine learning, data science, non-sql databases, Scala language and Spark-Hadoop.
Group Leader
1. Title: Dr. in Astronomy
2. Full name: René Duffard
3. Email: duffard@iaa.es
4. Research project/ Research Group website (Url):
https://www.iaa.csic.es/en/departments/solar-system-department
5. Website description:
Additional website (optional, max. 5 websites)
1. Url: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rene_Duffard
2. Website description: Research Gate with all the publications.
IAA is an equal opportunity institution. Applications to this program by female scientists are particularly encouraged.
Should you need any further information or assistance concerning the application, please contact the IAA at severoochoa[at]iaa.es