Rotating Asteroids?

• by cleisthenis

  Would rotating asteroids flash periodically the way that satellites can as the sun glints off their solar panels or other reflective surfaces?

  Posted June 25, 2014 2:09 AM

• by interplanetary scientist

  cleisthenis - To a certain extent "yes" - this is called photometry, and over time is called measuring a "light curve" and can be used to inform a number of interesting properties about the asteroid. In these series of 4 images, separated by ~10 minutes, you're not likely to see significant effects though. More detailed information is here: http://www.minorplanet.info/ObsGuides/Misc/photometryguide.htm

  Posted June 25, 2014 3:44 AM

• by scibuff

  if you're talking about the "object" in the top right corner, that is a camera/telescope optics artifact. For frame #2 it moves off of the image but in #1, #3 and #4 follows the same motion pattern as artifacts in other images

  Posted June 26, 2014 8:18 AM