Main Belt Asteroid Shape Distribution from Gaia DR2

Abstract

Gaia Data Release 2 includes observational data for 14,099 pre-selected asteroids. From the sparsely sampled G band photometry, we derive lower-limit lightcurve amplitudes for 11,665 main belt asteroids in order to provide constraints on the distribution of shapes in the asteroid main belt. Assuming a triaxial shape model for each asteroid, defined through the axial aspect ratios a > b and b=c, we find an average b/a=0.80+-0.04 for the ensemble, which is in agreement with previous results. By combining the Gaia data with asteroid properties from the literature, we investigate possible correlations of the aspect ratio with size, semi-major axis, geometric albedo, and intrinsic color. Based on our model simulations, we find that main belt asteroids greater than 50 km in diameter on average have higher b/a aspect ratios (are rounder) than smaller asteroids. We furthermore find significant differences in the shape distribution of main belt asteroids as a function of the other properties that do not affect the average aspect ratios. We conclude that a more detailed investigation of shape distribution correlations requires a larger data sample than is provided in Gaia Data Release 2.

accepted for publication in AJ

References in corpus (5)

• The NumPy array: a structure for efficient numerical computation
• The Gaia mission
• Gaia Data Release 2: Observations of solar system objects
• Distribution of spin-axes longitudes and shape elongations of main-belt asteroids
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• Astrometric detection of binary asteroids