Near-Earth asteroid 2012 DA14 made its closest approach on February 15, 2013, when it passed at a distance of 27,700 km from the Earth’s surface. It was the first time an asteroid of moderate size was predicted to approach that close to the Earth, becoming bright enough to permit a detailed study from ground-based telescopes. Asteroid 2012 DA14 was poorly characterized before its closest approach. The main objective of this work was to obtain new and valuable data to better understand its physical properties, and to evaluate the effects of such a close approach on the object. We acquired data using several telescopes on four Spanish observatories: the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) and the 3.6 m Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG), both in the El Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (ORM, La Palma); the 2.2 m CAHA telescope, in the Calar Alto Observatory (Almería); the f/3 0.77 m telescope in the La Hita Observatory (Toledo); and the f/8 1.5 m telescope in the Sierra Nevada Observatory (OSN, Granada). We obtained visible and near-infrared color photometry, visible spectra and time-series photometry. Visible spectra together with visible and near-infrared color photometry of 2012 DA14 show that the object can be classified as an L-type asteroid, a rare spectral type among the asteroid population, with a composition similar to that of carbonaceous chondrites. The time-series photometry provides a rotational period of 8.95 ± 0.08 h after the closest approach, and there are indications that the object suffered a spin-up during this event. The large amplitude of the light curve suggests that the object is very elongated and irregular, with an equivalent diameter of around 18 m. We obtain an absolute magnitude of HR = 24.5 ± 0.2, corresponding to HV = 25.0 ± 0.2 in V. The GTC photometry also gives HV = 25.29 ± 0.14. Both values agree with the value listed at the Minor Planet Center (MPC) shortly after discovery, although HV is very sensitive to the slope parameter G used to correct for phase angle. From the absolute photometry, together with some constraints on size and shape, we compute a geometric albedo of pV = 0.44 ± 0.20, which is slightly above the range of albedos known for L-type asteroids (0.082−0.405).
Advertised on
References
It may interest you
-
Red dwarfs are the most common stars in the galaxy. In recent years they have become key targets in the search for exoplanets. These stars are usually accompanied by rocky planets and due to their low brightness, their habitable zone is close to the star, making it easier to find planets that are within it. GJ 1002 is a red dwarf just one-eighth the mass of the Sun, located only 15.8 light-years away. Using radial velocity measurements from the ESPRESSO and CARMENES spectrographs, we have discovered the presence of two Earth-like and potentially habitable planets. The planets, GJ 1002 b andAdvertised on
-
The amount and complexity of data delivered by modern galaxy surveys has been steadily increasing over the past years. New facilities will soon provide imaging and spectra of hundreds of millions of galaxies. Extracting coherent scientific information from these large and multi-modal data sets remains an open issue for the community and data-driven approaches such as deep learning have rapidly emerged as a potentially powerful solution to some long lasting challenges. This enthusiasm is reflected in an unprecedented exponential growth of publications using neural networks, which have goneAdvertised on
-
The cosmic evolution of the barred galaxy population provides key information about the secular evolution of galaxies and the settling of rotationally dominated discs. We study the bar fraction in the SMACSJ0723.37323 (SMACS0723) cluster of galaxies at z = 0.39 using the Early Release Observations obtained with the NIRCam instrument mounted on the JWST telescope. We visually inspected all cluster member galaxies using the images from the NIRCam F200W filter. We classified the galaxies into ellipticals and discs and determine the presence of a bar. The cluster member selection was based on aAdvertised on