Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Sep 2006
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006dps....38.5806s&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #38, #58.06; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 38, p.592
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
1
Scientific paper
We report on field asteroids detected in MIPS 24 micron scan maps of 50 square degrees from three separate surveys near the ecliptic plane. The data were acquired in two observation epochs separated by 3-6 hours, and reach a 5-sigma sensitivity near 1 mJy - sufficient to detect main-belt objects with diameters below 1 km. We find a source density of about 250 and 50 asteroids per square degree at ecliptic latitudes of 0 and 10 degrees, respectively. The cumulative brightness distribution follows a -1.2 power law in flux density. We relate this to the intrinsic asteroid size distribution using a Monte Carlo model of the main belt population and the standard thermal model to predict the observed flux density distribution. An intrinsic size distribution with power-law slope of -2.3 with radius produces an observed brightness distribution that matches the Spitzer results. This result is in good agreement with previous determinations from the Sloan survey for objects in this size range. Ongoing work with these data will allow us to characterize the source counts and size distributions in a third field at 18 degrees ecliptic latitude, and to search for radial differences within the main belt.
Support for this work was provided by NASA to the Spitzer GO-1 Taurus survey project (PID 3584), and the c2d and SWIRE Legacy Science projects. The Spitzer Space Telescope is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology under a contract with NASA.
Brooke Timothy Young
Evans Neal J. II
Hines Dean Carter
Lonsdale Colin J.
Noriega-Crespo Alberto
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