The expected Gaia revolution in asteroid science.

Description

Apart from producing a huge improvement in the determination of asteroid orbits, Gaia is also expected to trigger a revolution in the field of the determination of asteroid physical properties. This includes the determination of accurate values of the mass and bulk density for about 100 of the largest objects in the main belt; the determination of the spin properties (rotation period, pole orientation) and approximate shapes for tens of thousands of objects; the measurement of reflectance spectra for an even larger number of asteroids, for all of whom also the blue part of the spectrum will be measured; the development of a new taxonomic classification. All this will open new perspectives in many fields of investigation, including the physical properties and age determination of many asteroid families, and the study of the relation between surface properties and bulk density, just to mention a couple of examples.

Abstract

International audience

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