Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Jan 2009
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009aas...21336304b&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #213, #363.04; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.513
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Scientific paper
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope routinely observes asteroids as foreground objects in astrophysical observations taken near the ecliptic plane. For the non-solar system scientist, these objects, which are imaged near their mid-infrared Wien peak, can introduce an appreciable uncertainty into the source identification process. In this paper, we introduce a color-based discrimination tool that may be employed to distinguish between "red” solar system vs. astrophysical sources. We employ three Spitzer Legacy datasets, starting with the First Look Survey - Ecliptic Plane Component (FLS-EPC) \citep{mea04}, which identified 19 (16) asteroids in (above) the ecliptic plane in fields of size 0.13 deg^{2} each. Because of Spitzer's sensitivity to small, dark solar system bodies, a number of the FLS-EPC sources are detected at shorter wavelengths, with flux densities on the order of tens of μJy. The FLS-EPC provides the only 3.6 - 24.0 μm observations of individual asteroids to date, at β = 0^{o} and +5^{o}. We have also carried out a detailed, photometric study of the 37 FLS-EPC Main Belt Asteroids (MBAs) over this wide wavelength range for comparison to deep, astrophysical data taken near the ecliptic plane at β = -9^{o} and +17^{o}, by the Spitzer Legacy S-COSMOS \citep{san07} and SWIRE \citep{lon03} programs, respectively. Both Legacy teams have identified a significant number of asteroids in their observations, and we investigate the effectiveness of using relative color as a means to distinguish between asteroids and background objects. We find a notable difference in the four IRAC and MIPS 24 μm bands between MBAs, stars, galaxies, and AGNs, though this variation is less significant when comparing fluxes in individual bands.
Bhattacharya Bidushi
FLS-EPC Team
S-COSMOS Team
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