Related papers: Asteroid 16 Psyche: Shape, Features, and Global Ma…

We describe interferometric observations of the asteroid (41) Daphne in the thermal infrared obtained with the Mid-Infrared Interferometric Instrument (MIDI) of the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI). We derived the size and the…

Asteroid (175706) 1996 FG3 is a binary asteroid and the baseline target for the proposed MarcoPolo-R sample-return mission. We present thermal IR photometry obtained with the ESO VLT+VISIR together with optical photometry obtained with the…

The Yarkovsky effect on real asteroids is complicated to calculate either by analytical or numerical methods, since they are generally irregular in shape. We propose an index to properly characterise the shape of any asteroid, through which…

The recent close approach of the NEA (3200) Phaethon offered a rare opportunity to obtain high-quality observational data. We used the newly obtained optical light curves to improve the spin and shape model of Phaethon and to determine its…

The rubble pile spin barrier is an upper limit on the rotation rate of asteroids larger than ~200-300 m. Among thousands of asteroids with diameters larger than ~300 m, only a handful of asteroids are known to rotate faster than 2.0 h, all…

In this paper we propose an analytic function for the spherical albedo values of airless and near-airless magma ocean planets (AMOPs). We generated 2-D fractal surfaces with varying compositions onto which we individually threw 10,000 light…

We use data from five stellar occultations observed between 2013 and 2016 to constrain Chariklo's size and shape, and the ring reflectivity. We consider four possible models for Chariklo (sphere, Maclaurin spheroid, tri-axial ellipsoid and…

Asteroid 2016 HO3, a small asteroid (<60 m) in super fast rotation state (~28 min), and is the target of China's Tianwen-2 asteroid sample-return mission. In this work, we investigate its structural stability using an advanced…

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…

We present initial results from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), a four-band all-sky thermal infrared survey that produces data well suited to measuring the physical properties of asteroids, and the NEOWISE enhancement to the…

We observed potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA) 2008 EV5 in the visible (0.30-0.92 microns) and near-IR (0.75-2.5 microns) wavelengths to determine its surface composition. This asteroid is especially interesting because it is a potential…

Optical lightcurves can be used for the shape and spin reconstruction of asteroids. Due to unknown albedo, these models are scale-free. When thermal infrared data are available, they can be used for scaling the shape models and for deriving…

We report on observations of near-Earth asteroid 2011 MD with the Spitzer Space Telescope. We have spent 19.9 h of observing time with channel 2 (4.5 {\mu}m) of the Infrared Array Camera and detected the target within the 2{\sigma}…

In this paper we present the observational campaign carried out at ESO NTT and VLT in April and May 2006 to investigate the nature and the structure of the Near Earth Object (144898) 2004 VD17. In spite of a great quantity of dynamical…

We present shape models and volume estimates of twenty asteroids based on relative photometry and adaptive optics images. We discuss error estimation and the effects of myopic deconvolution on shape solutions. For further analysis of the…

Surface shedding of an asteroid is a failure mode where surface materials fly off due to strong centrifugal forces beyond the critical spin period, while the internal structure does not deform significantly. This paper proposes a possible…

We present high spatial resolution mid- and far-infrared images of the Vega debris disk obtained with the Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer (MIPS). The disk is well resolved and its angular size is much larger than found previously.…

Methods to constrain the surface mineralogy of asteroids have seen considerable development during the last decade with advancement in laboratory spectral calibrations and validation of our interpretive methodologies by spacecraft…

Asteroid Ryugu and asteroid Bennu, which were recently visited by spacecraft Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx, respectively, are spinning top-shaped rubble piles. Other axisymmetric top-shaped near-Earth asteroids have been observed with…

Context. (3200) Phaethon is a ~5-km-diameter near-Earth asteroid with a small perihelion distance of 0.14 au and is the parent body of the Geminids. JAXA's DESTINY+ mission will fly by Phaethon in the near future. Aims. We aim to support…