Small Bodies Science with Twinkle

TL;DR

Twinkle, a space telescope with visible and near-infrared spectrometers, can observe and characterize thousands of small bodies like asteroids and comets over a decade, advancing Solar System research.

Contribution

This paper demonstrates Twinkle's potential for small bodies science, highlighting its capability to observe numerous asteroids and comets with high signal-to-noise ratio.

Findings

Thousands of asteroids will be observable over a decade.

Hundreds of comets can be observed with Twinkle.

Twinkle can characterize small bodies at native resolution.

Abstract

Twinkle is an upcoming 0.45m space-based telescope equipped with a visible and two near-infrared spectrometers covering the spectral range 0.4 to 4.5{\mu}m with a resolving power R~250 ({\lambda}<2.42{\mu}m) and R~60 ({\lambda}>2.42{\mu}m). We explore Twinkle's capabilities for small bodies science and find that, given Twinkle's sensitivity, pointing stability, and spectral range, the mission can observe a large number of small bodies. The sensitivity of Twinkle is calculated and compared to the flux from an object of a given visible magnitude. The number, and brightness, of asteroids and comets that enter Twinkle's field of regard is studied over three time periods of up to a decade. We find that, over a decade, several thousand asteroids enter Twinkle's field of regard with a brightness and non-sidereal rate that will allow Twinkle to characterise them at the instrumentation's native resolution with SNR > 100. Hundreds of comets can also be observed. Therefore, Twinkle offers researchers the opportunity to contribute significantly to the field of Solar System small bodies research.