► Japanese

► DARTS of the Month

The distribution of the asteroids projected on the ecliptic plane detected with AKARI

AKARI Asteroid Catalog "AcuA"

This figure shows the distribution of the asteroids projected on the ecliptic plane detected with the mid-infrared All-Sky Survey by the Japanese infrared satellite AKARI. Asteroids are the minor planets smaller than several-hundred km orbiting mainly inside the Jupiter orbit. Sizes and geometric albedo values from about 5,000 asteroids are cataloged with AKARI. This is the largest in the known catalogs of size and albedo of asteroids at present. This is based on the intermediate products of the AKARI point source catalog . If we take the point source catalog as the 'first squeeze' ("ichiban-shibori" in Japanese), our asteroid catalog is regarded as 'second squeeze' ("niban-shibori"). Like the barley-malt beer, first squeeze tastes fresh, light-bodied, and second squeeze does full-bodied. The composition and size distribution of asteroids provide significant information on their evolution history and contribute to future Rendezvous and/or sample return missions of small objects. For more details, please check Usui et al. 2011, PASJ (in press). This asteroid catalog will be publicly opened from the DARTS/AKARI page in a few months (planed URL is darts.jaxa.jp/ir/akari/catalogue/AcuA.html).

Fumihiko USUI (ISAS/JAXA)

Aug., 2011