Lowell Observatory

Comets and Asteroids Provide Important Clues About the Origin and Evolution of the Solar System. for Over 20 Years Lowell Observatory Has Maintained Catalogs of Orbital Elements for All Known Minor Planets. These Asteroid (ASTORB) and Comet (COMORB) Catalogs Are Actively Curated and Represent the Current Census of More Than of a Million Minor Planets in the Solar System. With Nasa Pdart Support We Have Been Working for the Past Two Years to Modernize the Astorb Database and Associated System of Software. This Has Involved Modifying Backend Infrastructure Developing a New Website (asteroid.lowell.edu) and Adding Physical Properties (e.g. Albedos Lightcurve Periods Spectral Types) to the Database. This Work Is Ongoing and Will Reach Completion in MID-2019. From This Work We Have Identified a Number of Improvements That Will Further Increase Community Access to the Database and Expand Its Capabilities. We Propose Here to Develop New Features That Will Build Upon the Astorb and Comorb Databases. This Work Will Consist of Three Primary Components. First We Will Incorporate Into Our System the Open Source Direct N-body Integrator Genga (grimm&stadel 2014) Which Is Designed for Gpu-based Hardware. N-body Integrators for Minor Planet Orbits Typically Use Cpus and Thus Are Limited to a Handful of Processing Cores. Gpus Have a Much Larger (~100X) Number of Cores Which Makes Them Very Well Suited to Parallelizing a Large Number of Simple Floating Point Calculations Like Those Needed for Orbit Integration. This Software Will Facilitate Efficient Maintenance of Our Database and the Creation of Novel Observational Planning Tools. Our Second Major Task Will Involve Adding Comets and Interstellar Objects to the Database. for Over 20 Years Comorb Has Only Been Used Internally at Lowell This Will Be the First Time These Data Are Made Publicly Available. We Will Augment Our Database to Handle Comets and Complexities Associated With Their Orbital and Brightness Properties. Folding Comets Into the Astorb Ecosystem Will Enable Use of the Observational Planning Tools on the Project Website. Our Third Major Task Will Involve Building a Bridge Between the Lowell Database and the JPL Small-body Orbit Determination System. Since Their Inception the Lowell Catalogs Have Served as Independent Calculations of Orbital Elements Regularly Computed as New Data Become Available. as the Number of Known Minor Planets Has Grown by Orders of Magnitude Since Astorb S Inception and Will Continue to Do So in the LSST Era Maintenance Will Become Increasingly Challenging. This Problem Can Be Greatly Ameliorated If We Can Outsource the Initial Computation of Orbital Elements. Fortunately JPL Produces the Highest Quality Orbital Elements in the World Are Well Prepared to Handle the Influx of Objects From LSST and Have an Api (application Programming Interface) for Access to Their Orbital Elements. We Will Work Closely With the Solar System Dynamics Group at JPL to Ingest Their Orbital Elements Into Astorb So That We Maintain All of Our Associated Functionality While Building Long-term Stability. in Exchange for Receiving Orbital Elements From JPL We Will Provide Them Our Curated Physical Properties Database Which Has Been Added to Astorb During Our First Iteration of Pdart Funding. These Physical Properties Will Then Be Accessible Through the JPL System. We Will Implement a Virtual Observatory (VO) Interface to Astorb Which Will Provide Open Public Access to the Database as Well as Facilitate the Transfer of Data to JPL. the Two Main Themes of This Proposal Are Increasing Access to the Astorb and Comorb Data and Expanding Their Capability for Future Users. the Tasks in Support of These Themes Are Directly in Line With Pdart Objectives to (1) Create a Reference Database to Enable Planetary Science Research and (2) to Develop Software Tools That Will Enhance Future Science Investigations.