Related papers: Using the chi-square test to compare asteroid and …
Mars is the only terrestrial planet known to have Tro jan (co-orbiting) asteroids, with a confirmed population of at least 4 objects. The origin of these objects is not known; while several have orbits that are stable on solar-system…
We study the surface composition of asteroids with visible and/or infrared spectroscopy. For example, asteroid taxonomy is based on the spectral features or multiple color indices in visible and near-infrared wavelengths. The composition of…
Seven of the nine known Mars Trojan asteroids belong to an orbital cluster named after its largest member 5261 Eureka. Eureka is likely the progenitor of the whole cluster, which formed at least 1 Gyr ago. It was suggested that the thermal…
K- and L-type asteroids are considered to be the parent bodies of CV and CO chondrites. Spectral models of L-types invoke an enrichment in CAI with respect to the chondrites in the meteorite collection. Barbarian asteroids are associated to…
We investigate the mineralogy of L5 Martian Trojan asteroids via reflectance spectroscopy, in particular (101429) 1998 $\mbox{VF}_{31}$, the only L5 Trojan that does not belong to the Eureka family (Christou, 2013). We find that this…
Given the compositional diversity of asteroids, and their distribution in space, it is impossible to consider returning samples from each one to establish their origin. However, the velocity and molecular composition of primary minerals,…
Although spectral surveys and spacecraft missions provide information on small bodies, many important analyses can only be performed in terrestrial laboratories. For now, the total number of parent bodies represented in our meteorites…
Context. Trojan asteroids of Mars date from an early phase of solar system evolution. Based on a sample of <10 asteroids, MT distribution has been previously shown to be both asymmetric and inhomogeneous with population evolution dominated…
We have used the XSHOOTER echelle spectrograph on the European Southern Obseratory (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT) to obtain UVB-VIS-NIR (ultraviolet-blue (UVB), visible (VIS) and near-infrared (NIR)) reflectance spectra of two members of…
We introduce a new method for analyzing sparse photometric data of asteroids and apply it to Zwicky Transient Facility observations of the Jupiter Trojan asteroids. The method relies on the creation of a likelihood model that includes the…
The surface composition of S-type asteroids can be determined using band parameters extracted from their near-infrared (NIR) spectra (0.7-2.50 $\mu$m) along with spectral calibrations derived from laboratory samples. In the past, these…
We obtained spectra of six of the largest asteroids (2201, 4183, 4486, 5143, 6063, and 269690) associated with Taurid complex. The observations were made with the IRTF telescope equipped with the spectro-imager SpeX. Their taxonomic…
Context: Massive amounts of spectroscopic data obtained by stellar surveys are feeding an ongoing revolution in our knowledge of stellar and Galactic astrophysics. Analysing these data sets to extract the best possible astrophysical…
The population of near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) shows a large variety of objects in terms of physical and dynamical properties. They are subject to planetary encounters and to strong solar wind and radiation effects. Their study is also…
M-type asteroids, as defined in the Tholen taxonomy (Tholen, 1984), are medium albedo bodies supposed to have a metallic composition and to be the progenitors both of differentiated iron-nickel meteorites and enstatite chondrites. We…
Artificial neural networks (ANN) have been successfully used in the last years to identify patterns in astronomical images. The use of ANN in the field of asteroid dynamics has been, however, so far somewhat limited. In this work we used…
I investigate the use of Pearson's chi-square statistic, the Maximum Likelihood Ratio statistic for Poisson distributions, and the chi-square-gamma statistic (Mighell 1999, ApJ, 518, 380) for the determination of the goodness-of-fit between…
Estimates for asteroid masses are based on their gravitational perturbations on the orbits of other objects such as Mars, spacecraft, or other asteroids and/or their satellites. In the case of asteroid-asteroid perturbations, this leads to…
Asteroid spectroscopy reflects surface mineralogy. There are few thousand asteroids whose surfaces have been observed spectrally. Determining the surface properties of those objects is important for many practical and scientific…
An efficient Bayesian technique for estimation problems in fundamental stellar astronomy is tested on simulated data for a binary observed both astrometrically and spectroscopically. Posterior distributions are computed for the components'…