TY - JOUR
T1 - The Mission Accessible Near-Earth Objects Survey
T2 - Four Years of Photometry
AU - Thirouin, Audrey
AU - Moskovitz, Nicholas A.
AU - Binzel, Richard P.
AU - Christensen, Eric J.
AU - Demeo, Francesca E.
AU - Person, Michael J.
AU - Polishook, David
AU - Thomas, Cristina A.
AU - Trilling, David
AU - Willman, Mark C.
AU - Burt, Brian
AU - Hinkle, Mary L.
AU - Pugh, Teznie
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge the referee for useful comments that improved this work. Lowell operates the Discovery Channel Telescope (DCT) in partnership with Boston University, the University of Maryland, the University of Toledo, Northern Arizona University, and Yale University. Partial support of the DCT was provided by Discovery Communications. LM was built by Lowell Observatory using funds from the National Science Foundation (AST-1005313). This work is also based on observations obtained at the Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) telescope, which is a joint project of the Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia, e Inovação (MCTI) da República Federativa do Brasil, the U.S. National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), and Michigan State University (MSU). We also used the 1.3 m SMARTS telescope operated by the SMARTS Consortium. This work is based in part on observations at Kitt Peak National Observatory, National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO Prop. ID:2013B-0270), which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. This research has made use of data and/or services provided by the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center. The authors acknowledge support from NASA NEOO grants NNX14AN82G, and NNX17AH06G. D. Polishook is grateful to the Ministry of Science, Technology and Space of the Israeli government for their Ramon fellowship for post-docs.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.
PY - 2018/11
Y1 - 2018/11
N2 - Over 4.5 years, the Mission Accessible Near-Earth Object Survey assembled 228 near-Earth object (NEO) light curves. We report rotational light curves for 82 NEOs, constraints on amplitudes and periods for 21 NEOs, light curves with no detected variability within the image signal-to-noise and length of our observing block for 30 NEOs, and 10 tumblers. We uncovered two ultra-rapid rotators with periods below 20 s, - 2016 MA with a potential rotational periodicity of 18.4 s, and 2017 QG18 rotating in 11.9 s - and estimated the fraction of fast/ultra-rapid rotators undetected in our project plus the percentage of NEOs with a moderate/long periodicity undetectable during our typical observing blocks. We summarize the findings of a simple model of synthetic NEOs to infer the object's morphology distribution using the measured distribution of light curve amplitudes. This model suggests that a uniform distribution of axis ratio can reproduce the observed sample. This suggests that the quantity of spherical NEOs (e.g., Bennu) is almost equivalent to the quantity of highly elongated objects (e.g., Itokawa), a result that can be directly tested thanks to shape models from Doppler delay radar imaging analysis. Finally, we fully characterized two NEOs - 2013 YS2 and 2014 FA7 - as appropriate targets for a potential robotic/human mission due to their moderate spin periods and low Δv.
AB - Over 4.5 years, the Mission Accessible Near-Earth Object Survey assembled 228 near-Earth object (NEO) light curves. We report rotational light curves for 82 NEOs, constraints on amplitudes and periods for 21 NEOs, light curves with no detected variability within the image signal-to-noise and length of our observing block for 30 NEOs, and 10 tumblers. We uncovered two ultra-rapid rotators with periods below 20 s, - 2016 MA with a potential rotational periodicity of 18.4 s, and 2017 QG18 rotating in 11.9 s - and estimated the fraction of fast/ultra-rapid rotators undetected in our project plus the percentage of NEOs with a moderate/long periodicity undetectable during our typical observing blocks. We summarize the findings of a simple model of synthetic NEOs to infer the object's morphology distribution using the measured distribution of light curve amplitudes. This model suggests that a uniform distribution of axis ratio can reproduce the observed sample. This suggests that the quantity of spherical NEOs (e.g., Bennu) is almost equivalent to the quantity of highly elongated objects (e.g., Itokawa), a result that can be directly tested thanks to shape models from Doppler delay radar imaging analysis. Finally, we fully characterized two NEOs - 2013 YS2 and 2014 FA7 - as appropriate targets for a potential robotic/human mission due to their moderate spin periods and low Δv.
KW - minor planets, asteroids: general
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85057571617&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85057571617&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3847/1538-4365/aae1b0
DO - 10.3847/1538-4365/aae1b0
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85057571617
SN - 0067-0049
VL - 239
JO - Astrophysical Journal, Supplement Series
JF - Astrophysical Journal, Supplement Series
IS - 1
M1 - 4
ER -