Physical models of large number of asteroids from calibrated photometry sparse in time (original) (raw)

A&A 422, L39-L42 (2004)

Letter to the Editor

Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Rolf Nevanlinna Institute, University of Helsinki, PO Box 4, 00014 Helsinki, Finland e-mail: mjk@rni.helsinki.fi

Received: 28 April 2004
Accepted: 15 June 2004

Abstract

I show that physical asteroid models can be constructed from unprecedentedly small sets of single calibrated photometric measurements sparse in time but well distributed in observing geometries. Sidereal periods, pole directions, and phase behaviour are solved with accuracy sufficient for the statistical analysis of a large collection of targets. Coarse estimates are obtained for the global shapes. This scheme makes it possible to carry out groundbased photometric surveys of thousands of asteroids, typically resulting in models within a few years. It may also be possible to model several asteroids using existing databases. In the future, GAIA photometry will provide another dataset for thousands of asteroids.

Key words: solar system: minor planets, asteroids / techniques: photometric / methods: numerical, observational

© ESO, 2004

Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.

Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.

Initial download of the metrics may take a while.

Article contents

Services

Bookmarking