First albedo determination of 2867 Steins, target of the Rosetta mission

Details First albedo determination of 2867 Steins, target of the Rosetta mission First albedo determination of 2867 Steins, target of the Rosetta mission

2006-02-28

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0602631v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

4 pages, 4 figures, letter accepted for pubblication on A&A

Scientific paper

10.1051/0004-6361:20064913

We present the first albedo determination of 2867 Steins, the asteroid target o f the Rosetta space mission together with 21 Lutetia. The data were obtained in polarimetric mode at the ESO-VLT telescope with the FORS1 instrument in the V and R filters. Observations were carried out from Jun e to August 2005 covering the phase angle range from 10.3 deg. to 28.3 deg., allowing the determination of the asteroid albedo by the well known experimenta l relationship between the albedo and the slope of the polarimetric curve at th e inversion angle. The measured polarization values of Steins are small, confirming an E-type cla ssification for this asteroid, as already suggested from its spectral propertie s. The inversion angle of the polarization curve in the V and R filters is resp ectively of 17.3 +/-1.5deg. and 18.4+/-1.0 deg., and the corresponding sl ope parameter is of 0.037+/-0.003 %/deg and 0.032+/-0.003 %/deg. On the basis of its polarimetric slope value, we have derived an albedo of 0.45 +/-0.1, that gives an estimated diameter of 4.6 km, assuming an absolute V ma gnitude of 13.18 mag.

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