Physics
Scientific paper
Jul 2001
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001hst..prop.9198e&link_type=abstract
HST Proposal ID #9198
Physics
Hst Proposal Id #9198 Solar System
Scientific paper
New images including the trails of small, main-belt asteroids are continuously being added to the HST Archive. The telescope's small field of view and lack of availability for follow-up observations are more than offset by a unique and remarkable advantage: HST asteroid trails are curved due to the parallax induced by the spacecraft's orbital motion. Using HST ephemerides to fit a trail's shape, an asteroid's geocentric distance can be derived from as little as 10 minutes of imaging data. The availability of accurate distances allows an absolute magnitude {size} distribution histogram to be constructed down to a limiting magnitude of V= 24 {H= 20; diameter 0.3 km} without need of full orbit determinations. Over the past four years, we have surveyed 87, 000 WFPC2 images and 7, 000 STIS images for asteroid trails and uncovered 491 images with trails from 206 distinct objects. We propose to continue building the HST asteroid database in Cycle 10 by searching 110, 000 new images and combining the results with our previous work. The results will provide fundamental constraints on models for collisional evolution of the main belt and a census of a major source region of Earth-crossing objects.
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