SDSS--Properties of Asteroids in the Commissioning Data

Details SDSS--Properties of Asteroids in the Commissioning Data SDSS--Properties of Asteroids in the Commissioning Data

Nov 2001

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001aas...198.9702i&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, 198th AAS Meeting, #97.02; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 33, p.1184

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

We present measurements of the properties of 10,000 asteroids detected in 500 deg2 of sky in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) commissioning data. The moving objects are detected in the magnitude range 14 < r* < 21.5, with a baseline of 5 minutes, resulting in typical velocity errors of 3%. Extensive tests show that the sample is at least 98% complete, with a contamination rate of less than 3%. We find that the size distribution of asteroids resembles a broken power-law, independent of heliocentric distance: D-2.3 for 0.4 km < D < 5 km, and D-4 for 5 km < D < 40 km. As a consequence of this break, the number of asteroids with r* < 21.5 is ten times smaller than predicted by extrapolating the power-law relation observed for brighter asteroids (r* < 18). The observed counts imply that there are about 530,000 objects with D > 1 km in the asteroid belt, or about four times less than previous estimates. We predict that by its completion SDSS will obtain about 100,000 near simultaneous five-band measurements for a subset of about 280,000 asteroids brighter than r* < 21.5 at opposition. The distribution of main belt asteroids in the 4-dimensional SDSS color space is bimodal, and the two groups can be associated with S (rocky) and C (carbonaceous) asteroids. A strong bimodality is also seen in the heliocentric distribution of asteroids and suggests the existence of two distinct belts: the inner rocky belt, about 1 AU wide (FWHM) and centered at R ~ 2.8AU, and the outer carbonaceous belt, about 0.5 AU wide and centered at R ~ 3.2AU.

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