More than 85% of the 18,000 NEOs discovered up to now lack a physical characterization. The situation is even more dramatic for the small NEO population (D < 300 m). We conducted photometric observations for a large collection of uncharacterized NEOs in order to design future space missions towards them and assess the consequences of a possible impact on Earth. We discovered that carbonaceous C-complex NEOs deserve particular attention, since they are sometimes located in orbits that are challenging from a mitigation point of view, but also because the lack of carbonaceous material might not be due to an observational bias alone.
Extended photometric survey of Near-Earth Objects
A Rossi;
2018
Abstract
More than 85% of the 18,000 NEOs discovered up to now lack a physical characterization. The situation is even more dramatic for the small NEO population (D < 300 m). We conducted photometric observations for a large collection of uncharacterized NEOs in order to design future space missions towards them and assess the consequences of a possible impact on Earth. We discovered that carbonaceous C-complex NEOs deserve particular attention, since they are sometimes located in orbits that are challenging from a mitigation point of view, but also because the lack of carbonaceous material might not be due to an observational bias alone.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
