Physical Parameters of Asteroids Estimated from the WISE 3-Band Data and NEOWISE Post-Cryogenic Survey
Abstract
Enhancements to the science data processing pipeline of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission, collectively known as NEOWISE, resulted in the detection of >158,000 minor planets in four infrared wavelengths during the fully cryogenic portion of the mission. Following the depletion of its cryogen, NASA's Planetary Science Directorate funded a four-month extension to complete the survey of the inner edge of the Main Asteroid Belt and to detect and discover near-Earth objects (NEOs). This extended survey phase, known as the NEOWISE Post-Cryogenic Survey, resulted in the detection of ~6500 large Main Belt asteroids and 86 NEOs in its 3.4 and 4.6 μm channels. During the Post-Cryogenic Survey, NEOWISE discovered and detected a number of asteroids co-orbital with the Earth and Mars, including the first known Earth Trojan. We present preliminary thermal fits for these and other NEOs detected during the 3-Band Cryogenic and Post-Cryogenic Surveys.
Additional Information
© 2012 American Astronomical Society. Received 2012 August 1; accepted 2012 September 27; published 2012 November 2. This publication makes use of data products from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, which is a joint project of the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, and NEOWISE, which is a project of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology. WISE and NEOWISE are funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. We gratefully acknowledge the extraordinary services specific to NEOWISE contributed by the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center, operated by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. We thank the worldwide community of dedicated amateur and professional astronomers devoted to minor planet follow-up observations. We thank our referee for thoughtful comments. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive, which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. D.J.T. acknowledges support from NSF Grant AST 1109940.Attached Files
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 35898
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20121211-074518954
- NASA/JPL/Caltech
- AST-1109940
- NSF
- Created
-
2012-12-11Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-09Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC)