Abstract

Pan-STARRS/LSST MOPS Alert System

Francesco Pierfederici (LSST)

The MOPS Team

MOPS (Moving Object Processing System) is the world's first integrated asteroid and comet (objects) detection, linking, orbit determination and database system. It is developed jointly by Pan-STARRS and LSST. MOPS generates new orbits for thousands of solar system objects. MOPS also refines known orbits when extra observations are associated to them. Several of these solar system objects prove to be of interest to a wider community. This might be because, for instance, of a high impact probability or need to perform follow-up observations. Once MOPS determines than an orbit is `interesting` (in the sense given above) it generates an alert (in the form of a VOEvent packet) for that object. Interested parties within the community can then be notified of the alert and decide whether to act on it. This presentation describes the architecture and operations of the MOPS Alert System.

Mode of presentation: oral