Constraining the shape distribution of near earth objects from partial lightcurves

In the absence of dense photometry for a large population of Near Earth Objects (NEOs), the best method of obtaining a shape distribution comes from sparse photometry and partial lightcurves. We have used 867 partial lightcurves obtained by Spitzer to determine a shape distribution for sub-kilometre NEOs. From this data we find a best fit average elongation $\frac{b}{a}=0.72 \pm 0.08$. We compare this result with a shape distribution obtained from 1869 NEOs in the same size range observed by Pan-STARRS 1 and find the Spitzer-obtained elongation to be in excellent agreement with this PS1 value of $\frac{b}{a}=0.70 \pm 0.10$. These values are also in agreement with literature values for $1

Keywords:

• Near-Earth object
• Photometry (optics)
• large population
• Distribution (mathematics)
• Astrophysics
• Asteroid
• Range (statistics)
• Data set
• Asteroid belt
• Physics

• Correction
• Source
• Cite
• Save
• Machine Reading By IdeaReader