Near-Earth Objects in the Infrared: Investigations with the NASA IRTF and JWST
When
Where
Dr. Cristina Thomas
Assistant Professor
Northern Arizona University
The Near-Earth Object (NEO) population is the result of an ongoing flux of small bodies from elsewhere in the Solar System. My research program combines studies of the NEO population as a whole with targeted investigations of unique targets. The study of NEOs is particularly important for several reasons including the fact that their compositional diversity is directly related to their sources elsewhere in the Solar System and they are the direct precursors to our meteorite population. I lead the MIT-Hawaii Near-Earth Objects Spectroscopic (MITHNEOS) Survey, which has been observing NEOs for nearly 20 years using SpeX on the NASA IRTF. Our dataset has over 1,200 spectral observations of nearly 1,000 targets. Our current program has shifted focus to smaller objects than in the past and started obtaining 3-micron observations of available targets. I also lead an NEO JWST program as a member of the Solar System Guaranteed Time Observations (GTO) team. This work started several years ago with a detailed assessment of how the nominal non-sidereal tracking rate impacted JWST's ability to observe NEOs. The GTO observations of Didymos and Phaethon have been completed and we are working on the data analysis.
I will discuss ongoing work with the MITHNEOS survey including possible future directions and preliminary analysis of the JWST data with thoughts on future asteroid observations with the telescope.
Host: Dr. Sukrit Ranjan.