Detecting Earth's Temporarily-Captured Natural Satellites - Minimoons
Bryce Bolin, Robert Jedicke, Mikael Granvik, Peter Brown, Ellen, Howell, Michael C. Nolan, Peter Jenniskens, Monique Chyba, Geoff Patterson,, Richard Wainscoat

TL;DR
This study evaluates the effectiveness of current and near-future ground-based and space-based facilities in discovering Earth's temporarily captured natural satellites, highlighting the potential and limitations of various detection methods.
Contribution
The paper provides a comprehensive assessment of the detectability of TCOs using optical, infrared, meteor detection, and radar systems, including new simulation results for radar detection probabilities.
Findings
Ground-based optical surveys can find large TCOs over years.
Targeted Subaru telescope surveys can detect 0.5-1.0 m TCOs in about 5 nights.
Radar systems have over 80% chance to detect >10 cm TCOs with sufficient operation time.
Abstract
We present a study on the discoverability of temporarily captured orbiters (TCOs) by present day or near-term anticipated ground-based and space-based facilities. TCOs (Granvik et al. 2012) are potential targets for spacecraft ren- dezvous or human exploration (Chyba et al. 2014) and provide an opportunity to study the population of the smallest asteroids in the solar system. We find that present day ground-based optical surveys such as Pan-STARRS and ATLAS can discover the largest TCOs over years of operation. A targeted survey conducted with the Subaru telescope can discover TCOs in the 0.5 m to 1.0 m diameter size range in about 5 nights of observing. Furthermore, we discuss the application of space-based infrared surveys, such as NEOWISE, and ground-based meteor detection systems such as CAMS, CAMO and ASGARD in discovering TCOs. These systems can detect TCOs but at a uninteresting…
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