The Albedo Distribution of Near Earth Asteroids
Edward L. Wright, Amy Mainzer, Joseph Masiero, Tommy Grav, James Bauer

TL;DR
This study analyzes the albedo distribution of Near Earth Asteroids observed by WISE, revealing a bimodal distribution with dark and moderately dark populations, impacting detection strategies for potentially hazardous asteroids.
Contribution
It introduces a novel three-parameter model fitting the albedo distribution of NEAs, highlighting the existence of two distinct populations and their implications for asteroid detection.
Findings
25.3% of NEAs are in a very dark population peaking at p_V=0.03
74.7% of NEAs are in a moderately dark population peaking at p_V=0.168
Dark asteroids are harder to detect, affecting survey completeness goals.
Abstract
The cryogenic WISE mission in 2010 was extremely sensitive to asteroids and not biased against detecting dark objects. The albedos of 428 Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) observed by WISE during its fully cryogenic mission can be fit quite well by a 3 parameter function that is the sum of two Rayleigh distributions. The Rayleigh distribution is zero for negative values, and follows for positive x. The peak value is at x=\sigma, so the position and width are tied together. The three parameters are the fraction of the objects in the dark population, the position of the dark peak, and the position of the brighter peak. We find that 25.3% of the NEAs observed by WISE are in a very dark population peaking at , while the other 74.7% of the NEAs seen by WISE are in a moderately dark population peaking at . A consequence of this…
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Taxonomy
TopicsAstro and Planetary Science · Planetary Science and Exploration · Scientific Research and Discoveries
