Predicting the Accuracy of Asteroid Size Estimation with Data from the Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time

Abstract

Recent work has shown that the correlation between SDSS colors and optical albedo can be used to estimate asteroid sizes from optical data alone. We revisit a correlation between SDSS colors and optical albedo for asteroids, with the albedo derived using WISE-based size estimates. Moeyens, Myhrvold \& Ivezić (2020) showed that this correlation can be used to estimate asteroid sizes with optical data alone, with a precision of about 17\% relative to WISE-based size estimates. We present here several more sophisticated data-driven models for the variation of optical albedo with colors and estimate the contribution of SDSS photometric errors to the albedo and size estimate uncertainties. We use the results of our analysis to predict that LSST data will enable asteroid size precision of about 15\% relative to WISE-based size estimates. Compared to the accuracy of WISE-based size estimates of 15-20\%, the implied accuracy of optical size estimates, in the range 21-25\%, is thus only a factor of 1.3 to 1.4 worse. This size estimation accuracy is significantly better than commonly assumed for optical data and is due to accurate and homogeneous multi-band photometry delivered by modern digital sky surveys.

arXiv comment13 pages, 7 figures, accepted by Icarus

References in corpus (22)

• Astropy: A Community Python Package for Astronomy
• The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE): Mission Description and Initial On-orbit Performance
• The Astropy Project: Building an inclusive, open-science project and status of the v2.0 core package
• LSST: from Science Drivers to Reference Design and Anticipated Data Products
• The Milky Way Tomography with SDSS: II. Stellar Metallicity
• Solar System Objects Observed in the SDSS Commissioning Data
• The taxonomic distribution of asteroids from multi-filter all-sky photometric surveys
• Introduction to astroML: Machine Learning for Astrophysics
• Periodograms for Multiband Astronomical Time Series
• The Size Distributions of Asteroid Families in the SDSS Moving Object Catalog 4
• Color Confirmation of Asteroid Families
• Comparison of Asteroids Observed in the SDSS with a Catalog of Known Asteroids
• The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope as a Near-Earth Object Discovery Machine
• Photometric Redshifts with the LSST: Evaluating Survey Observing Strategies
• The shape distribution of asteroid families -- evidence for evolution driven by small impacts
• NEOWISE Studies of Asteroids with Sloan Photometry: Preliminary Results
• Color Variability of Asteroids in SDSS Moving Object Catalog
• Asteroid thermal modeling in the presence of reflected sunlight with an application to WISE/NEOWISE observational data
• Space-Based Thermal Infrared Studies of Asteroids
• An Investigation of the Ranges of Validity of Asteroid Thermal Models for Near-Earth Asteroid Observations
• A family-based method of quantifying NEOWISE diameter errors
• Comparing the NEATM with a Rotating, Cratered Thermophysical Asteroid Model

Cited by in corpus (3)

• The Solar System Notification Alert Processing System (SNAPS): Design, Architecture, and First Data Release (SNAPShot1)
• Rotation state, colors, and albedo of the mission-accessible tiny near-Earth asteroid 2001 QJ${}_{142}$
• Uncertainties on Asteroid Albedos Determined by Thermal Modeling