Related papers: Characterization of Temporarily-Captured Minimoon …
We report on our detailed characterization of Earth's second known temporary natural satellite, or minimoon, asteroid 2020 CD3. An artificial origin can be ruled out based on its area-to-mass ratio and broadband photometry, which suggest…
Any near-Earth object (NEO) following an Earth-like orbit may eventually be captured by Earth's gravity during low-velocity encounters. This theoretical possibility was first attested during the fly-by of 1991 VG in 1991-1992 with the…
Minimoons are asteroids that become temporarily captured by the Earth-Moon system. We present the discovery of 2024 PT$_5$, a minimoon discovered by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) Sutherland telescope on 2024…
2024 PT$_5$ is a tiny ($D\leq10$ m) near-Earth asteroid (NEA) discovered in August 2024. 2024 PT$_5$ was gravitationally bound to the Earth-Moon system from September to November 2024 and classified as a minimoon. Several quick response…
The rotational properties of $\sim$10~m-scale asteroids are poorly understood with only a few measurements. Additionally, collisions or thermal recoil can spin their rotations to periods less than a few seconds obfuscating their study due…
On 4 March 2021 at 9 UTC a 30-m in diameter near-Earth asteroid 2021 DW1 passed the Earth at a distance of 570000 km, reaching the maximum brightness of V=14.6 mag. We observed it photometrically from 2 March, when it was visible at V=16.5…
The SiTian project, with its vast field of view, will become an ideal platform for asteroid scientific research. In this study, we develop a pipeline to analyze the photometry of asteroids and derive their periods from the data collected by…
Phase-resolved spectroscopy of four AM CVn systems obtained with the William Herschel Telescope and the Gran Telescopio de Canarias (GTC) is presented. SDSS\,J120841.96+355025.2 was found to have an orbital period of 52.96$\pm$0.40\,min and…
We present new CCD observations of nine Near-Earth Asteroids carried out between February, 1999 and July, 2000. The bulk of the data was acquired through an R_C filter, while the minor planet 11405 was observed without filter. We could…
We observed one transit of the extrasolar planet HD 209458b with the NIRSPEC spectrograph on the Keck II telescope. Using time series of low-noise observations in the wavelength range 2.0 micron to 2.5 micron, we searched for extra…
System parameters are re-determined: $M_1=0.86\pm0.18M\odot$, $M_2=0.103\pm0.022M\odot$, $A=1.508\pm 0.100\times 10^{10}$cm, and $i=69\pm3^{\circ}$. The secondary component is a semi-degenerate helium star loosing mass at a rate $\dot…
We present the discovery of SDSS J135154.46-064309.0, a short-period variable observed using 30-minute cadence photometry in K2 Campaign 6. Follow-up spectroscopy and high-speed photometry support a classification as a new member of the…
Context. The Arjuna asteroid belt is loosely defined as a diverse group of small asteroids that follow dynamically cold, Earth-like orbits. Most of them are not actively engaged in resonant, co-orbital behavior with Earth. Some of them…
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,…
We fit 54,296 sparsely-sampled asteroid lightcurves in the Palomar Transient Factory to a combined rotation plus phase-function model. Each lightcurve consists of 20+ observations acquired in a single opposition. Using 805 asteroids in our…
We report the direct detection of radiation pressure on the asteroid 2009 BD, one of the smallest multi-opposition near-Earth objects currently known, with H ~ 28.4. Under the purely gravitational model of NEODyS the object is currently…
Near-Earth binary asteroid (175706) 1996 FG3 is the current backup target of the ESA MarcoPolo-R mission, selected for the study phase of ESA M3 missions. It is a primitive (C-type) asteroid that shows significant variation in its visible…
We present $L$'-band imaging of the PDS 70 planetary system with Keck/NIRC2 using the new infrared pyramid wavefront sensor. We detected both PDS 70 b and c in our images, as well as the front rim of the circumstellar disk. After…
We present an analysis of new and published data on P/2013 R3, the first asteroid detected while disintegrating. Thirteen discrete components are measured in the interval between UT 2013 October 01 and 2014 February 13. We determine a mean,…
We conducted photometric and spectroscopic characterization of near-Earth asteroid (52768) 1998 OR2 during a close approach to the Earth in April of 2020. Our photometric measurements confirm the rotation period of the asteroid to be 4.126…