The Gaia-FUN-SSO observation campaign of 99942 Apophis: A preliminary test for the network

TL;DR

This paper reports on an observation campaign of asteroid Apophis to test the Gaia-FUN-SSO network's coordination and performance, demonstrating improved astrometric accuracy and potential orbit uncertainty reduction for future close approaches.

Contribution

It presents a large-scale coordinated observation campaign and shows that using reliable stellar catalogs enhances astrometric data quality.

Findings

High-quality astrometric observations were obtained for Apophis.

Consistent data reduction improves astrometric accuracy.

The new data may reduce orbit uncertainty for 2029 close approach.

Abstract

In order to test the coordination and evaluate the overall performance of the Gaia-FUN-SSO, an observation campaign on the Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (99 942) Apophis was conducted from 12/21/2012 to 5/2/2013 providing 2732 high quality astrometric observations. We show that a consistent reduction of astrometric campaigns with reliable stellar catalogs substantially improves the quality of astrometric results. We present evidence that the new data will help to reduce the orbit uncertainty of Apophis during its close approach in 2029.