Thermal Model Calibration for Minor Planets Observed with WISE/NEOWISE: Comparison with IRAS

TL;DR

This study compares thermal infrared measurements of minor planets from NEOWISE and IRAS, showing NEOWISE provides more accurate and less biased diameter estimates, enhancing our understanding of over 157,000 minor planets.

Contribution

The paper demonstrates that NEOWISE thermal data yields more accurate minor planet diameters than IRAS, validating NEOWISE's dataset for physical characterization.

Findings

NEOWISE diameters are less biased than IRAS.

Good agreement between NEOWISE and IRAS diameters.

NEOWISE provides reliable parameters for over 157,000 minor planets.

Abstract

With thermal infrared observations detected by the NEOWISE project, we have measured diameters for 1742 minor planets that were also observed by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS). We have compared the diameters and albedo derived by applying a spherical thermal model to the objects detected by NEOWISE and find that they are in generally good agreement with the IRAS values. We have shown that diameters computed from NEOWISE data are often less systematically biased than those found with IRAS. This demonstrates that the NEOWISE dataset can provide accurate physical parameters for the >157,000 minor planets that were detected by NEOWISE.