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Aero 426, Space System Engineering

Aero 426, Space System Engineering. Lecture 4 NEA Discoveries (How to Observe NEAs). NEAs are dim but stars are bright – So let’s begin by considering star light. Spectral Types, Light Output and Mean Lifetime.

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Aero 426, Space System Engineering

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  1. Aero 426, Space System Engineering Lecture 4NEA Discoveries (How to Observe NEAs)

  2. NEAs are dim but stars are bright – So let’s begin by considering star light

  3. Spectral Types, Light Output and Mean Lifetime

  4. A Hertzsprung-Russell (HR) diagramis a plot of absolute magnitude (luminosity) against temperature. The majority of stars lie in a band across the middle of the plot, known as the Main Sequence. This is where stars spend most of their lifetime, during their hydrogen-burning phase.

  5. All other stars 2% G-type main-sequence stars, including the sun 4% 9% K Dwarfs Brightness Red Dwarfs 80% 5% White Dwarfs The Stellar Pyramid

  6. Measuring the distance to stars • If the angle the star moves through is 2 arcsecond, then the distance to the star = 1 parsec

  7. Measuring the brightness of stars (and NEAS) • The observed brightness of a star is given by its apparent magnitude. (First devised by Hipparchus who made a catalogue of about 850) • The brightest stars: m=1. Dimmest stars (visible to the naked eye) m=6. • The magnitude scale has been shown to be logarithmic, with a difference of 5 orders of magnitude corresponding to a factor of 100 in actual brightness. • Brightness measured in terms of radiated flux, F. This is the total amount of light energy emitted per surface area. Assuming that the star is spherical, F=L/4πr2, where L is the star’s luminosity. • Also defined is the absolute magnitude of a star, M. This is the apparent magnitude a star would have if it were located ten parsecs away. Comparing apparent and absolute magnitudes leads to the equation: • where r is the distance to the star, measured in parsecs. • The absolute magnitude of a NEA is its magnitude when 1AU distance from the sun, and at zero phase angle

  8. Many Stars Are Brighter than 10th Magnitude [1] ab “Vmag< 6.5”. SIMBAD Astronomical Database 2010-06-25 [2] “Magnitude”. National Solar Observatory – Sacramento Peak. Archived from the original on 2008-02-06. Retrieved 2006-08-23.

  9. How many stars brighter than a given magnitude?

  10. Approximate Star Light Spectrum A sea of photons is surrounded on all sides by high temperature plasma and atoms. These particles randomly absorb or emit photons, permitting all possible energy transitions compatible with conservation of overall energy

  11. Approximate Star Light Spectrum: Planck’s Law

  12. Wien’s law UV & Vis Infrared Microwave Approximate Star Light Spectrum

  13. COBE (Cosmic Background Explorer) satellite data precisely verifies Planck’s radiation law

  14. Using Planck’s Law: Accuracy of intensity measurement • As given above Planck’s law just gives the rate at which energy is emitted. But light is composed of discrete packets, called photons, each having energy • Photon arrivals are a Poisson process for which all statistics are determined by the average number of photons received in a given time interval. • The standard deviation of the fluctuation from the mean of the number of photons received is the square root of the average number received. • Then the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) of an intensity measurement during a given time interval is: • The key parameter is the average rate of photons received per unit area of collecting aperture for light in a given wavelength band,

  15. Summary for Stars • You have a simple model for the number of stars brighter than a given magnitude (see slide 16):This helps you figure out what type of star you should choose to look at. • You also have a simple model for how many photons are received per sec as a function of magnitude (see slide 9):This is essential to evaluate the “goodness” of the intensity data. The next lecture shows how to compute the SNR from this.

  16. NEA Types • An asteroid is coined a Near Earth Asteroid (NEA) when its trajectory brings it within 1.3 AU [Astronomical Unit] from the Sun and hence within 0.3 AU of the Earth's orbit. The largest known NEA is 1036 Ganymede (1924 TD, H = 9.45 mag, D = 31.7 km). • A NEA is said to be a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA) when its orbit comes to within 0.05 AU (= 19.5 LD [Lunar Distance] = 7.5 million km) of the Earth's orbit, the so-called Earth Minimum Orbit Intersection Distance (MOID), and has an absolute magnitude H < 22 mag (i.e., its diameter D > 140 m). The largest known PHA is 4179 Toutatis (1989 AC, H = 15.3 mag, D = 4.6×2.4×1.9 km).

  17. Statistics as of December 2012 • 899 NEAs are known with D* > 1000 m (H** < 17.75 mag), i.e., 93 ± 4 % of an estimated population of 966 ± 45 NEAs • 8501 NEAs are known with D < 1000 m • The estimated total population of all NEAs with D > 140 m (H < 22.0 mag) is ~ 15,000; observed: 5456 (~ 37 %) • The estimated total population of all NEAs with D > 100 m (H < 22.75 mag) is ~ 20,000; observed: 6059 (~ 30 %). • The estimated total population of all NEAs with D > 40 m (H < 24.75 mag) is ~ 300,000; observed: 7715 (~ 3%) .Estimates: <targetneo.jhuapl.edu/pdfs/sessions/TargetNEO-Session2-Harris.pdf>.Further details: <ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb_query.cgi>. * D denotes the asteroid mean diameter ** H is the Visible-band magnitude an asteroid would have at 1 AU distance from the Earth, viewed at opposition

  18. NEO Search Programs • Asiago DLR Asteroid Survey (ADAS), Italy/Germany • Campo Imperatore Near Earth Object Survey (CINEOS), Italy • Catalina Sky Survey (CSS), USA • China NEO Survey / NEO Survey Telescope (CNEOS/NEOST) • European NEA Search Observatories (EUNEASO) • EUROpean Near Earth Asteroid Research (EURONEAR) • IMPACTON, Brasil • Japanese Spaceguard Association (JSGA), Japan • La Sagra Sky Survey (LSSS), Spain • Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR), USA • Lowell Observatory Near-Earth Object Search (LONEOS), USA • Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT), USA • Panoramic Survey Telescope And Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS), USA • Spacewatch, USA • Teide Observatory Tenerife Asteroid Survey (TOTAS), Spain • Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), USA.

  19. Current Surveys • Currently the vast majority of NEA discoveries are being carried out by the Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson (AZ, USA), the LINEAR survey near Socorro (NM, USA), the Pan-STARRS survey on Maui (HI, USA), and, until recently, the NEO-WISE survey of the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE).A review of NEO surveys is given by: Stephen Larson, 2007, in: A. Milani, G.B. Valsecchi & D. Vokrouhlický (eds.), Proceedings IAU Symposium No. 236, Near Earth Objects, our Celestial Neighbors: Opportunity and Risk, Prague (Czech Republic) 14-18 August 2006 (Cambridge: CUP), p. 323, "Current NEO surveys."

  20. NEA Detection Summary Only 1% detected, and if you wait for sharp shadows, it’s probably too late

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