• 천문학회보
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• 제39권1호
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• pp.67.2-67.2
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• 2014

Comet nucleus is a solid body consisting of dark dust grains and ice. Cometary volatiles sublimate from subsurface layer by solar heating, leaving behind large dust grains on the surface. Eventually, the appearance could turn into asteroidal rather than cometary. It is, therefore, expected that there would be "dormant comets" in the list of known asteroids. Our research group has undertaken the research on the population of dormant comets. We applied a brand-new asteroidal catalog compiled from data garnered by three infrared astronomical observatories, AKARI, IRAS and WISE. We extracted objects which have comet-like orbits on the basis of their orbital properties (Tisserand parameters with respect to Jupiter, TJ, and aphelion distance, Q). We found that (1) there are a considerable number (>100) of asteroids in comet-like orbits, and (2) 80% of them have low albedo consistent with comets. This result suggest that these low albedo objects could be dormant comets. One unanticipated finding is that 20% of asteroids in comet-like orbit have high albedo similar to S-type asteroids. It is difficult to explain the population of S-type asteroids in comet-like orbits by the classical mechanics theory. We further found that these high-albedo objects are small (D < 2 km) bodies distributed in near-Earth space. We suggest that such high-albedo, small, near-Earth asteroids are susceptible to Yarkovsky effect and injected into comet-like orbits.

• 천문학회보
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• 제38권1호
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• pp.62.2-62.2
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• 2013

It is considered that comets near the ecliptic plane have been injected into inner solar system from Kuiper-belt. Some of them are still active while others are dormant with no detectable tails and comae. These dormant comets have eccentric and/or inclined orbits, which are parameterized by Tisserand parameter TJ<3. In addition, dormant comets can be differentiated from asteroids based on the albedo, because they have low albedo (the geometrical albedos pv<0.1). The conditions of TJ<3 and pv<0.1 have been used as a criteria to discriminate dormant comets from asteroids. However, we must be more careful because there are 'contaminations' from the outer region, i.e. Jovian Trojans (5.05

• 천문학회보
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• 제45권1호
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• pp.47.1-47.1
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• 2020

Multi-band photometry provides an advantage in being able to perform taxonomic classification analysis on a large number of asteroids in a much shorter period of time than spectroscopy. We observed main-belt asteroids using Korea Microlensing Telescope Network (KMTNet) in CTIO during the summer seasons in the southern hemisphere, mostly in December 2015, 2016 and 2017 with two visible photometric systems, SDSS (g, r, i, and z), and Johnson-Cousins (B, V, R, and I). Targets were selected for the asteroids which had already been classified based on Bus-Binzel taxonomy (Bus & Binzel, 2002) and DeMeo taxonomy (DeMeo et al. 2009). Not only the targets but also numerous serendipitously observed asteroids were identified. In summary, 6817 and 5456 known objects, including 307 and 233 already classified asteroids were observed with SDSS and Johnson-Cousins systems, respectively. Using principal component analysis, the three major asteroid complexes and a class, S-, C-, and X-complexes and V class are found to be well separated in the principal component plane (spectral slope and 1 micron absorption depth) with both filter systems. We will present and discuss the results of our newly proposed three-dimensional color taxonomy for asteroids using the whole dataset (Roh et al., to be submitted).

• 천문학회보
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• 제37권1호
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• pp.98.2-98.2
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• 2012

It has been speculated that there could be dormant or extinct comets in the list of known asteroids, which appear asteroidal but are icy bodies originating from outer solar system. However, little is known about the existence of such objects not only because of their complicated chaotic orbits but also because of the limited physical and chemical information. AKARI infrared space mission gave us brand-new albedo catalog of Near Earth Objects, which clues in a better understanding of dark asteroids using both albedo data and dynamical models could be possible. Dark Asteroids with low () albedos are thought to be dormant or extinct comet candidates due to its similar albedo values with comet nucleus. In addition to this, dynamical models indicate that candidate cometary objects have Tisserand parameter. Based on both observational and dynamical criteria, we obtained 196 dark asteroids lists. We numerically integrated backward their orbits using the N-body code Mercury6 (Chambers 1999) during 10 million years to track the past orbits of bodies. We picked out 14 comet candidates that show abnormal orbits in the past by analyzing orbital elements among 196 candidates. From the dynamical evolution simulations, we finally obtained 3 most-likely comet candidates; 944Hidalgo,2006QL39,andP/SidingSpring.Twoofthemareconsistent with past research; P/Siding Spring is a known comet and 944 Hidalgo is a most-likely comet candidate in asteroid populations. Since they all have stable orbits in nowadays although they have unstable orbit in the past, we could conclude that they may be not active comets but dormant or extinct comets.

• 천문학회보
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• 제45권1호
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• pp.46.2-46.2
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• 2020

Dust ejection activities have been discovered from a few tens of asteroids since the first confirmation in 2006. Those objects are known as active asteroids. They provide good observational chances to study ongoing phenomena in the solar system such as sublimation of icy volatiles, mutual collisions among asteroids, rotational disintegrations, thermal fatigue, etc. Although dust ejection mechanisms of individual cases have been investigated through observations, the frequencies of the events and their connection to the overall evolutionary budget of the solar system have not yet been studied thoroughly, mainly because previous studies were based on serendipitous discoveries without any systematic surveys of these objects. In this work, we made wide-field monitoring observations of asteroids using Korea Microlensing Telescope Network (KMTNet) during the 2018/2019 winter season. Among 3,644 asteroids in the field-of-view, we detected nine candidates of brightness enhancements which we suspect as possible activities. It is still possible that some of those brightness increases have caused by long-term rotations. However, our observed frequency and brightness enhancements size-frequency distribution agrees with the expectations from impacts with decimeter sized objects, when the main belt objects size-frequency distribution observed down to decameter sized bodies are extrapolated to decimeter size.

• 천문학회보
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• 제46권2호
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• pp.57.4-58
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• 2021

Asteroids have undergone various processes such as impacts, space weathering, and thermal evolution. Because they expose their surfaces to space without atmosphere, these evolutional processes have been recorded directly on their surfaces. The remote-sensing observations have been conducted to reveal these evolutional histories of the target asteroids. For example, crater and boulder distributions are unambiguous evidence for past nondestructive impacts with other celestial bodies. Multiband and spectroscopic observations have revealed space-weathering history (as well as compositions). Whereas most physical quantities have been examined intensively using spacecraft and telescopes, only a little has been studied on "the grain size". It is one of the fundamental physical quantities for diagnosing the collisional and thermal history of asteroids. Our group has conducted polarimetric research of asteroids (as well as Moon [1]) to determine the particle size and further investigate the evolutional histories of target asteroids [2],[3]. For example, the existence of regolith on an S-type asteroid, Toutatis, was suggested almost twenty years before space exploration [4]. Moreover, we reported that near-Sun asteroids indicate a signature of submillimeter grains, which could be created by a thermal sintering process by solar radiation [5]. However, it is important to note that in-situ polarimetry has not been reported on the asteroid surface, although the Korean Lunar Exploration Program aims to do polarimetry on the lunar surface [6]. Therefore, it is expected that the polarizer mounted on the Korean Apophis spacecraft can make the first estimate of the grain size and its regional variation over the Apophis surface. In this presentation, we outline research of S-type asteroid surfaces through remote-sensing observations and consider the role of polarimetry. Based on this review, we consider the purpose, potentiality, and strategy of the polarimetry using the onboard device for the Apophis spacecraft. We will report a possible polarization phase curve of Apophis estimated from ordinary chondrites and past observational data of S-type asteroids, taking account of the space weathering effect. Based on this estimation, we will consider the strategy of how to determine the particle size (and space weathering degree) of the Apophis surface. We will also mention the detectability of dust hovering on the surface.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• 제37권3호
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• pp.171-185
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• 2020

This paper presents a methodology for Initial Orbit Determination (IOD) based on a modification of the Laplace's geocentric method. The orbital elements for Near-Earth asteroids (1864) Daedalus, 2003 GW, 2019 JA8, a Hungaria-type asteroid (4690) Strasbourg, and the asteroids of the Main Belt (1738) Oosterhoff, (2717) Tellervo, (1568) Aisleen and (2235) Vittore were calculated. Input data observations from the Minor Planet Center MPC database and Astronomical Observatory of the Technological University of Pereira (OAUTP; MPC code W63) were used. These observations cover observation arcs of less than 22 days. The orbital errors, in terms of shape and orientation for the estimated orbits of the asteroids, were calculated. The shape error was less than 53 × 10^-3 AU, except for the asteroid 2019 JA8. On the other hand, errors in orientation were less than 0.1 rad, except for (4690) Strasbourg. Additionally, we estimated ephemerides for all bodies for up to two months. When compared with actual ephemerides, the errors found allowed us to conclude that these bodies can be recovered in a field of vision of 95' × 72' (OAUTP field). This shows that Laplace's method, though simple, may still be useful in the IOD study, especially for observatories that initiate programs of minor bodies observation.

• 천문학회보
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• 제37권1호
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• pp.101.2-101.2
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• 2012

An asteroid family is a population of asteroids in the proper orbital element space (a, e, i), considered to have been produced by a disruption of a large parent body presumably through a catastrophic collision. Asteroid families offer unique opportunities to reconstruct and characterize the break-up history of airless bodies in the main-belt. The Maria family is a typical old population (~3${\pm}$1 Gyr) of asteroids that have undergone significant collisional and dynamical evolution in the history of the inner Solar System; it is also believed to be one of the candidate source regions for giant S-type near-earth asteroids (NEAs). However, to date, physical characteristics of this family members such as rotational periods have been known only for 61 of the larger asteroids among 3,230 objects, which accounts for less than 2 percent of the family. In this presentation, we provide some preliminary results of our recent study: out of more than dozen of the family members, lightcurves for eight objects have been obtained for the first time. We plan to increase the number of target objects, and investigate evidences for the Yarkovsky/YORP effect on Maria family based on our observations.

• 천문학회보
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• 제43권1호
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• pp.51.2-51.2
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• 2018

Polarimetry is a powerful technique to investigate the physical properties of surface materials on airless bodies in the solar system. It is known that the degree of linear polarization changes as a function of the phase angle (the angle between Sun-target-Observer). Especially, the dependency of the polarization degree at large phase angle allows us to obtain information related to the particle size and porosity, which is difficult to be determined via other observation techniques (i.e., photometry and spectroscopy). However, despite the advantage, only a few asteroids were observed with polarimetric devices at large phase angles. Here, we present our new polarimetric research of Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs) observed at the large phase angles. Among the NEAs, we focus on S- and Q-type asteroids, which include: (331471) 1984 QY1, (90075) 2002 VU94, and (66391) 1999 KW4. The observation was conducted using the Pirka 1.6-m Telescope at the Nayoro Observatory of Hokkaido University at the phase angles ${\alpha}{\sim}100degree$, which provides us the maximum polarization degrees of these objects. Considering the observational results together with two objects ((1566) Icarus and (4179) Toutatis) in reference papers [1], [2], we will discuss the implication of the regolith size on their surfaces.

• 천문학회보
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• 제41권1호
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• pp.56.1-56.1
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• 2016

Surface mineralogy of asteroids are inferred from photometric and spectroscopic observations with the wide range of wavelengths spanning from far-ultraviolet to mid-infrared. We classify mineralogy of those objects based on their spectral absorption features and spectral slopes. Based on overall spectral shapes, mineralogical classes are divided into three broad complexes; silicates (S), carbonaceous (C) and Vestoids (V), and the end-members that do not fit within the S, C and V broad-complexes. Each of them is subdivided into individual classes. Spectral classification of asteroidal objects has been simply represented by a combination of photometric colors. For a decade, photometric data of asteroids have been grouped and classified according to their SDSS colors converted from the spectral taxonomy. However, systematic studies for asteroid taxonomy based on Johnson-Cousins filters is few, and were conducted only with a small number of objects. In this paper, we present our preliminary results for taxonomic classification of Main Belt asteroids based on KMTNet Johnson-Cousins photometric color system.