Detecting active comets in the SDSS

Details Detecting active comets in the SDSS Detecting active comets in the SDSS

Feb 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010icar..205..605s&link_type=abstract

Icarus, Volume 205, Issue 2, p. 605-618.

Statistics

1

Scientific paper

Using a sample of serendipitously discovered active comets in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), we develop well-controlled selection criteria for greatly increasing the efficiency of comet identification in the SDSS catalogs. After follow-up visual inspection of images to reject remaining false positives, the total sample of SDSS comets presented here contains 19 objects, roughly one comet per 10 million other SDSS objects. The good understanding of selection effects allows a study of the population statistics, and we estimate the apparent magnitude distribution to r˜18, the ecliptic latitude distribution, and the comet distribution in SDSS color space. The most surprising results are the extremely narrow range of colors for comets in our sample (e.g. root-mean-square scatter of only ˜0.06 mag for the g-r color), and the similarity of comet colors to those of jovian Trojans. We discuss the relevance of our results for upcoming deep multi-epoch optical surveys such as the Dark Energy Survey, Pan-STARRS, and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), and estimate that LSST may produce a sample of about 10,000 comets over its 10-year lifetime.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Detecting active comets in the SDSS does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Detecting active comets in the SDSS, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Detecting active comets in the SDSS will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1096075