009 KD5: A Photometric Signature of a Binary Near-Earth Asteroid

Details 009 KD5: A Photometric Signature of a Binary Near-Earth Asteroid 009 KD5: A Photometric Signature of a Binary Near-Earth Asteroid

Oct 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010dps....42.1315f&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #42, #13.15; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.1055

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

2009 KD5 was discovered May 26 2009 by the Observatorio Astronomico de Mallorca LSSS (La Sagra Sky Survey) Near-Earth Object (NEO) survey (MPEC 2009-K55) and identified as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA) by the Minor Planet Center. The object's 2010 closest approach to the Earth was quite distant (delta=0.24 AU on June 29 2010). However, the 2010 apparition allows the NEO to be observed under slowly varying illumination and viewing geometry. We have analyzed six nights of Bessel BVRI observations at the JPL Table Mountain Observatory (TMO) 0.6-m telescope (6/15, 6/16, 6/19, 6/20, 7/03, 7/04 UT). The PHA's averaged broad-band colors (B-R=1.300+/-0.034 mag; V-R=0.491+/-0.027 mag; R-I=0.409+/-0.027 mag) were found to be most compatible with an L-type spectral classification (Bus & Binzel 2002). L-types asteroids are members of the S-family of asteroids and may represent surfaces highly processed by collisional gardening and space weathering. A solar phase curve constructed from our data was consistent with an assumed solar phase parameter g=0.15, yielding an Absolute Magnitude HV = 18.39 mag. Systematic departures in the night-to-night rotationally phase photometry suggested that the NEO is a binary asteroid. We have fit a two-period model for the lightcurve of 2009 KD5, with the primary P1 = 2.52 hr (very near the rotational break-up speed of a self-gravitating rubble pile) and secondary, presumably tidally-locked, component P2 = 21.7 hr. We have an additional two nights of unreduced photometry that should further constrain the asteroid's solar phase and rotational properties.

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