Related papers: Precise Distances for Main-Belt Asteroids in Only …
Understanding the dynamical evolution of asteroids through the secular Yarkovsky effect requires the determination of many physical properties, including the rotation period. We propose a method aimed at obtaining a robust determination of…
Upcoming telescopes like the Vera Rubin Observatory (VRO) and the Argus Array will image large fractions of the sky multiple times per night yielding numerous Near Earth Object (NEO) discoveries. When asteroids are measured with short…
Deflecting an asteroid from an Earth impact trajectory requires only small velocity changes, typically of the order of microns per second, if done many years ahead of time. For this, a highly precise method of determining the need,…
In this article, theory-based analytical methodologies of astrophysics employed in the modern era are suitably operated alongside a test research-grade telescope to image and determine the orbit of a near-earth asteroid from original…
A comprehensive characterization of the detection efficiency of nine of the major asteroid surveys that have been active over the past two decades is presented. The detection efficiency is estimated on a nightly basis by comparing the…
Photometry results of 32 asteroids are reported from only seven observing nights on only seven fields, consisting of 34.11 cumulative hours of observations. The data were obtained with a wide-field CCD (40.5'x27.3') mounted on a small,…
While of order a million asteroids have been discovered, the number in rigorously controlled samples that have precise orbits and rotation periods, as well as well-measured colors, is relatively small. In particular, less than a dozen…
The release of Gaia catalog is revolutionary to the astronomy of solar system objects. After some effects such as atmospheric refraction and CCD geometric distortion have been taken into account, the astrometric precision for ground-based…
Multi-epoch Spitzer Space Telescope 24 micron data is utilized from the MIPSGAL and Taurus Legacy surveys to detect asteroids based on their relative motion. These infrared detections are matched to known asteroids and rotationally averaged…
Using a fully autonomous spacecraft - Bering - we propose to detect and study sub-km asteroids from an orbit within the asteroid Main Belt. The main purpose of the proposed Bering mission is to detect a statistically significant sample of…
A new method for the line-of-sight velocity estimation of a high-speed near-Earth object (asteroid, meteorite) is suggested. The method is based on use of fractional, one-half order derivative of a Doppler signal. The algorithm suggested is…
Knowledge of the interior density distribution of an asteroid can reveal its composition and constrain its evolutionary history. However, most asteroid observational techniques are not sensitive to interior properties. We investigate the…
Context: Observation of star occultations is a powerful tool to determine shapes and sizes of asteroids. This is key information necessary for studying the evolution of the asteroid belt and to calibrate indirect methods of size…
This paper presents an analysis of optimal impact strategies to deflect potentially dangerous asteroids. To compute the increase in the minimum orbit intersection distance of the asteroid due to an impact with a spacecraft, simple…
Low-thrust trajectories play a crucial role in optimizing scientific output and cost efficiency in asteroid belt missions. Unlike high-thrust transfers, low-thrust trajectories require solving complex optimal control problems. This…
Accurate astrometry is crucial for determining orbits of near-Earth-asteroids (NEAs) and therefore better tracking them. This paper reports on a demonstration of 10 milliarcsecond-level astrometric precision on a dozen NEAs using the Pomona…
We select 50 main-belt asteroids with a diameter between 20 and 400 km for which we have (i) shape models derived by the lightcurve inversion method (LI) and (ii) resolved observations of good quality collected with the Keck II adaptive…
Accurate distances to stars and galaxies allow for significant tests of stellar evolution, galaxy formation and evolution and cosmology. NASA's Space Interferometry Mission (SIM) will obtain precision [1-30 microarcsec] astrometry for…
Asteroid diameters are traditionally difficult to estimate. When a direct measurement of the diameter cannot be made through either occultation or direct radar observation, the most common method is to approximate the diameter from infrared…
We describe digital tracking, a method for asteroid searches that greatly increases the sensitivity of a telescope to faint unknown asteroids. It has been previously used to detect faint Kuiper Belt objects using the Hubble Space Telescope…