Visible and Near-Infrared Spectroscopy of Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (68950) 2002 QF15

Details Visible and Near-Infrared Spectroscopy of Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (68950) 2002 QF15 Visible and Near-Infrared Spectroscopy of Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (68950) 2002 QF15

Sep 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006dps....38.5904a&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #38, #59.04; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 38, p.593

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

1

Scientific paper

Introduction: Visible and near-infrared spectral observations were obtained of potentially hazardous asteroid (68950) 2002 QF15 from the MMT Observatory and NASA Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF). Data from the MMT were collected over 3 nights (May 31, June 1 and 2, 2006 UT) using the facility Red Channel spectrograph with approximately 20 Angstrom resolution covering the 0.4 to 0.9 micron interval. A total of 54 five-minute spectra were obtained over these three nights at airmasses between 1.00 and 1.14. Data from the NASA IRTF were collected on May 20, 2006 UT using the SpeX instrument operated in the asteroid mode, which spans the 0.75 to 2.5 micron interval. During this single night, a total of 54 two-minute spectra were obtained at airmasses between 1.00 and 1.16.
Spectral Results: The near-IR spectral data demonstrate that 2002 QF15 has absorption features located near 1 and 2 microns, which seem to be indicative of mafic silicates. Preliminary analyses of these features suggest that this object has an affinity to the S-class asteroids. No significant thermal emission is evident in its near-IR spectrum. This suggests that this object does not have a low albedo even though the object's heliocentric distance was 1.08 AU at the time the IRTF observations were obtained.
Conclusions: The interpretation of the spectral data and lack of any thermal emission suggests that this object has an olivine and pyroxene assemblage with an albedo value that falls within the observed range of S-type near-Earth objects. Although the albedo of 2002 QF15 cannot be determined directly from the spectral data, a lower limit can be estimated, which may be used to help constrain the size of this potentially hazardous asteroid.
Acknowledgments: Portions of this work were supported by the NASA Postdoctoral program and the NASA Near-Earth Object Observation Program grant NNG04GI17G.

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