[FPSPACE] Comparing the NEATM with a Rotating, Cratered Thermophysical Asteroid Model

[LARRY KLAES]

Astrophysics, abstract
astro-ph/0703085

From: Edward L. Wright [view email]

Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2007 19:29:24 GMT   (163kb)

Comparing the NEATM with a Rotating, Cratered Thermophysical Asteroid Model

Authors: Edward L. Wright (UCLA)

Comments: 8 pages LaTex with 13 Postscript fiugres

A cratered asteroid acts somewhat like a retroflector, sending light and 
infrared radiation back toward the Sun, while thermal inertia in a rotating 
asteroid causes the infrared radiation to peak over the "afternoon" part. In 
this paper a rotating, cratered asteroid model is described, and used to 
generate infrared fluxes which are then interpreted using the Near Earth 
Asteroid Thermal Model (NEATM). Even though the rotating, cratered model 
depends on three parameters not available to the NEATM (the dimensionless 
thermal inertia parameter and pole orientation), the NEATM gives diameter 
estimates that are accurate to 10 percent RMS for phase angles less than 60 
degrees. For larger phase angles, such as back-lit asteroids, the infrared 
flux depends strongly on these unknown parameter, so the diameter errors are 
larger; and real world complications such as non-spherical shapes have been 
ignored.

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0703085