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Asteroid Taxonomy with DP0.3
This week’s presenter Valerio Carruba will discuss asteroid taxonomy with Data Preview 0.3 (DP0.3), the solar system focused component of Rubin’s Data Preview 0.
“The reflected light from asteroids can be used to obtain information about their surface composition. By obtaining a spectrum of this light asteroids can be classified into several taxonomic types, like the C, S, V, etc. Absorption bands at 1 and 2 microns can suggest the presence of basaltic material, associated with a differentiated body and V-type asteroids. Broad absorption features in the visible and near-infrared may be related to the presence of hydrated silicate minerals and organic compounds, associated with C-type asteroids. A reddish slope in the spectra, meaning that their reflectance increases towards longer wavelengths in the visible and near-infrared range, may be caused by the presence of iron-bearing minerals on the surface and be associated with an S-type asteroid. Unfortunately, while there are currently more than 1.4 million asteroids, reflectance spectra are available just for a few thousand objects. Alternative methods based on color indices based on multi-band photometric data, like those provided by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Moving Object Catalog, Fourth Edition, or SDSS-MOC4, and, more recently, the Dark Energy Survey (DES), increased the number of objects with know taxonomies to more than 200,000. This is, however, still a small fraction of the known population of main belt asteroids. The Vera Rubin Observatory is expected to provide multi-band photometry for millions of asteroids and will revolutionize our understanding of the composition of asteroids in the Solar System. In this notebook, we will show how to use the simulated data for the DP0.3 release to obtain a preliminary taxonomical classification of asteroids based on DeMeo and Carry’s (2013) approach, in preparation for the release of real observational data in 2025.”
Summary and recording of the Rubin Science Assembly, 18 July 2024 – Asteroid Taxonomy with DP0.3
The Rubin Science Assembly on Thursday, 18 July 2024 featured a notebook demo by Valerio Carruba (UNESP). The notebook demonstrated how to investigate and visualize different classes of asteroids within Rubin’s DP0.3 data set on the Rubin Science Platform. A recording is available:
