Lightcurve Photometry Opportunities: 2011 January - March

Details Lightcurve Photometry Opportunities: 2011 January - March Lightcurve Photometry Opportunities: 2011 January - March

Jan 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011mpbu...38...65w&link_type=abstract

The Minor Planet Bulletin (ISSN 1052-8091). Bulletin of the Minor Planets Section of the Association of Lunar and Planetary Obse

Physics

Scientific paper

For background on the program details for each of the opportunity lists, refer to previous issues, e.g., Minor Planet Bulletin 36, 188. As always, we urge observations of asteroids even if they have well-established lightcurve parameters, especially if they do not yet have good spin axis or shape models. Every lightcurve of sufficient quality provides valuable information in support of such efforts, which are needed to resolve a number of questions about the evolution of individual asteroids and the general population. Furthermore, data over many apparitions can help determine if an asteroid's rotation rate is being affected by the YORP effect, a thermal effect that can cause a smaller, irregularly-shaped asteroid to speed up or slow down. See Lowry et al. (2007) Science 316, 272- 274 and Kaasalainen et al. (2007) Nature 446, 420-422. Lightcurves, new or repeats, of near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) are also important for solving spin axis models, specifically the orientation of the asteroid's axis of rotation. Pole directions are known for only about 30 NEAs out of a population of 6800. This is hardly sufficient to begin analyses of pole alignments, including whether or not YORP is forcing pole orientations into a limited number of preferred directions (see La Spina et al., 2004, Nature 428, 400-401).

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