Using IRAC to Measure the Yarkovsky Effect for 1862 Apollo

Details Using IRAC to Measure the Yarkovsky Effect for 1862 Apollo Using IRAC to Measure the Yarkovsky Effect for 1862 Apollo

Dec 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007sptz.prop..468m&link_type=abstract

Spitzer Proposal ID #468

Computer Science

Scientific paper

The Yarkovsky force, first postulated in 1900, is now recognized as an extremely important mechanism for transporting small bodies throughout the Solar System. Bottke et al. (2007) recently computed that theYarkovsky force is partially responsible for putting the D~10 km K/T impactor on a collison course with Earth. Recent, unpublished work has detected the Yarkovsky force for the asteroid (1862) Apollo. It is possible to use Spitzer to make an independent measurement of the Yarkovsky force by measuring the differences in an asteroid's thermal fluxes and colors at two epochs separated by several months, corresponding to viewing it at its local morning and evening. Apollo is an ideal candidate for validating this technique, since its spin state, shape, orbit, and Yarkovsky force are all well-established, and it is easily observed by Spitzer. If this technique can be validated on Apollo, it can be used to measure the Yarkovsky force directly for large numbers of asteroids using thermal IR data alone. This will be of considerable use to future infrared asteroid surveys. However, Apollo has only two remaining visibility windows during Spitzer's cryogenic mission, both over before Summer 2008 and the start of Cycle 5. We request time to conduct the dual epoch IRAC observations necessary to validate this valuable method of measuring the Yarkovsky force.

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