The Population of Tiny Near-Earth Objects Observed by NEOWISE
Abstract
Only a very small fraction of the asteroid population at size scales comparable to the object that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia has been discovered to date, and physical properties are poorly characterized. We present previously unreported detections of 105 close approaching near-Earth objects (NEOs) by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission's NEOWISE project. These infrared observations constrain physical properties such as diameter and albedo for these objects, many of which are found to be smaller than 100 m. Because these objects are intrinsically faint, they were detected by WISE during very close approaches to the Earth, often at large apparent on-sky velocities. We observe a trend of increasing albedo with decreasing size, but as this sample of NEOs was discovered by visible light surveys, it is likely that selection biases against finding small, dark NEOs influence this finding.
Additional Information
© 2014 The American Astronomical Society. Received 2013 July 26; accepted 2013 October 10; published 2014 March 12. This publication makes use of data products from the Widefield Infrared Survey Explorer, which is a joint project of the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This publication also makes use of data products from NEOWISE, which is a project of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, funded by the Planetary Science Division of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. We thank our referee, Dr. Alan Harris of Pasadena, for his helpful comments that materially improved this manuscript. 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, and the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams, operated by Harvard University. We also thank the worldwide community of dedicated amateur and professional astronomers devoted to minor planet follow-up observations. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive, which is operated by the California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.Attached Files
Published - 0004-637X_784_2_110.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 46123
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20140606-105149586
- NASA/JPL/Caltech
- Created
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2014-06-06Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-10Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC)