NEOSURVEY 1: INITIAL RESULTS FROM THE WARM SPITZER EXPLORATION SCIENCE SURVEY OF NEAR-EARTH OBJECT PROPERTIES

ABSTRACT Near-Earth objects (NEOs) are small solar system bodies whose orbits bring them close to the Earth's orbit. We are carrying out a Warm Spitzer Cycle 11 Exploration Science program entitled NEOSurvey-a fast and efficient flux-limited survey of 597 known NEOs in which we derive a diamete...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Astronomical journal 2016-12, Vol.152 (6), p.172
Main Authors: Trilling, David E., Mommert, Michael, Hora, Joseph, Chesley, Steve, Emery, Joshua, Fazio, Giovanni, Harris, Alan, Mueller, Michael, Smith, Howard
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
ALBEDO
ASTEROIDS
ASTROPHYSICS, COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
EMISSION
EXPLORATION
infrared: planetary systems
minor planets, asteroids: general
ORBITS
PLANETS
SOLAR SYSTEM
surveys
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Summary:ABSTRACT Near-Earth objects (NEOs) are small solar system bodies whose orbits bring them close to the Earth's orbit. We are carrying out a Warm Spitzer Cycle 11 Exploration Science program entitled NEOSurvey-a fast and efficient flux-limited survey of 597 known NEOs in which we derive a diameter and albedo for each target. The vast majority of our targets are too faint to be observed by NEOWISE, though a small sample has been or will be observed by both observatories, which allows for a cross-check of our mutual results. Our primary goal is to create a large and uniform catalog of NEO properties. We present here the first results from this new program: fluxes and derived diameters and albedos for 80 NEOs, together with a description of the overall program and approach, including several updates to our thermal model. The largest source of error in our diameter and albedo solutions, which derive from our single-band thermal emission measurements, is uncertainty in , the beaming parameter used in our thermal modeling; for albedos, improvements in solar system absolute magnitudes would also help significantly. All data and derived diameters and albedos from this entire program are being posted on a publicly accessible Web page at nearearthobjects.nau.edu.
ISSN:0004-6256
1538-3881
1538-3881
DOI:10.3847/0004-6256/152/6/172