Models and physical properties of asteroids from optical and infrared data

In our study, we used the convex inversion thermophysical models (CITPM) by Durech et al. [1] to constrain asteroid's shape model and parameters, including thermal inertia, geometric albedo, and surface roughness simultaneously from optical and infrared data. We collected size and spin state as input parameters from lightcurve inversion and published results, and they were also improved in our running.

 

Using the latest optical photometry data from ground-based big surveys and long-term thermal observations at different wavelengths from three infrared space missions: IRAS, AKARI, and WISE. By comparing our results with a large set of thermal properties of asteroids by Hung et al. [2] and asteroid models in DAMIT [3], we were not only able to optimize thousands of asteroids' parameters but also enlarge the database of asteroid models.

 

In our future work, we plan to collect more asteroids' photometry data from a variety of surveys, especially from Gaia DR3 which will be released in June 2022, and the first light of LSST (Vera C. Rubin Observatory) is expected in 2023. The new parameters of asteroids will be useful to analyze asteroid population distribution and the physical mechanism behind it.

 

 

References

[1] Durech et al., 2017, Astronomy & Astrophysics 604, A27.

[2] Hung et al., 2022, The Planetary Science Journal, 3, 56.

[3] Durech et al., 2010, Astronomy & Astrophysics 513, A46.