Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Sep 2008
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008dps....40.2503b&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #40, #25.03; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 40, p.432
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
1
Scientific paper
Arecibo (2380-MHz, 13-cm) and Goldstone (8560-MHz, 3.5-cm) delay-Doppler radar observations since 1980 have yielded images of sixteen candidate contact binary near-Earth asteroids (NEAs). Here we define a contact binary as an object consisting of two lobes that are in contact, have a bimodal mass distribution, and which therefore may once have been separate. The objects in our sample range from 0.25 to 3 km in average diameter and have rotation periods from as short as 2.7 hours to as long as weeks; several are probably non-principal axis rotators. Some could be former binaries that collapsed together or objects that could spin up into binaries in the future. Since completion of the Arecibo upgrade in 1999, 10% (14/137) of NEAs larger than 200 m in diameter observed by radar have turned out to be candidate contact binaries. Some 17% of radar-observed NEAs this large are binaries. The implication is that binaries and contact binaries constitute at least 25% of the NEA population.
Benner Lance A. M.
Brozovic Marina
Busch Michael W.
Giorgini Jon D.
Magri Christopher
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