Meteorite Image Analysis System – Tempe

INSTITUTION

Arizona State University (Tempe Campus)

CLASS

Cobalt Class (2019 – 2020)

STUDENT TEAM

Jacob Peters, Computer Science
John Shaeffer, Computer Science
Michael St.Onge, Computer Science
Kohl Stark, Computer Science (Cybersecurity)
Ginnette Vasiliu, Engineering Management

SCIENTIFIC & TECHNICAL GUIDANCE

Dr. Laurence Garvie, Research Professor, School of Earth and Space Exploration, ASU
Dr. Tim McCoy, Chair, Smithsonian Curator of Meteorites

ACADEMIC GUIDANCE

Dr. Ming Zhao, Associate Professor, ASU School of Computing, Informatics, and Decision Systems Engineering
Dr. Helen Chavez, Lecturer, School of Computing, Informatics, and Decision Systems Engineering, ASU

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Meteorite experts use their knowledge to recognize the inclusions in meteorites based primarily on color, texture, and reflectivity. A major challenge of this project is to translate this human knowledge to an automated recognition system the can replicate the human expertise. To work towards this goal, teams are working to create software to do planimetric analysis of images of iron meteorite samples to help determine their bulk chemical compositions. An additional challenge to this project is how to process and store large numbers of very large image files.

This work was created in partial fulfillment of Arizona State University Capstone Courses “CSE 485-486”. The work is a result of the Psyche Student Collaborations component of NASA’s Psyche Mission (https://psyche.asu.edu). “Psyche: A Journey to a Metal World” [Contract number NNM16AA09C] is part of the NASA Discovery Program mission to solar system targets. Trade names and trademarks of ASU and NASA are used in this work for identification only. Their usage does not constitute an official endorsement, either expressed or implied, by Arizona State University or National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of ASU or NASA.