The EUNEASO Project: A European NEO Search, Follow-up and Physical Observation Programme

EUNEASO, which stands for EUropean Near-Earth Asteroids Search Observatories, is a cooperation to organize a large-scale NEO search programme. The participating groups do astrometric follow-up observations as well as photometric and spectroscopic studies of NEO's. Currently, the development of CCD cameras for the search programme is done at the DLR in Berlin and the OCA in Nice, where tests have been performed with the 90 cm Schmidt telescope at Caussols. Scanning photographic films taken by a Schmidt telescope appears to be a promising tool to detect NEO's. Corresponding tests with commercial scanners are carried out at OCA. Plans exist to install a 1.5 k x lk CCD at the 67 cm Schmidt telescope in Asiago, Italy. Astrometric follow-up and photometric observations of NEO's are currently done on a routine basis at Ondrejov Observatory, Czech Republic, using a 60 cm telescope equipped with a CCD camera. A similar system is available at Kharkiv Observatory, Ukraine, attached to a 70 cm telescope. Photometric CCD observations of NEO's are performed as part of the asteroid observing programme of the DLR with the 60 cm Bochum telescope at ESO, which is available for some 100 nights per year

Comet C/1996 B2 (Hyakutake)

peer reviewedAvailable from the Minor Planet Center

Photometric Survey of Binary Near-Earth Asteroids

Photometric data on 17 binary near-Earth asteroids (15 of them are certain detections, two are probables) were analysed and characteristic properties of the near-Earth asteroid (NEA) binary population were inferred. We have found that binary systems with a secondary-to-primary mean diameter ratio Ds/Dp > 0.18 concentrate among NEAs smaller than 2 km in diameter; the abundance of such binaries decreases significantly among larger NEAs. Secondaries show an upper size limit of Ds = 0.5–1 km. Systems with Ds/Dp < 0.5 are abundant but larger satellites are significantly less common. Primaries have spheroidal shapes and they rotate rapidly, with periods concentrating between 2.2 to 2.8 h and with a tail of the distribution up to ~4 h. The fast rotators are close to the critical spin for rubble piles with bulk densities about 2 g/cm3. Orbital periods show an apparent cut-off at Porb ~11 h; closer systems with shorter orbital periods have not been discovered, which is consistent with the Roche limit for strengthless bodies. Secondaries are more elongated on average than primaries. Most, but not all, of their rotations appear to be synchronized with the orbital motion; non-synchronous secondary rotations may occur especially among wider systems with Porb > 20 h. The specific total angular momentum of most of the binary systems is similar to within ±20% and close to the angular momentum of a sphere with the same total mass and density, rotating at the disruption limit; this suggests that the binaries were created by mechanism(s) related to rotation near the critical limit and that they neither gained nor lost significant amounts of angular momentum during or since formation. A comparison with six small asynchronous binaries detected in the main belt of asteroids suggests that the population extends beyond the region of terrestrial planets, but with characteristics shifted to larger sizes and longer periods. The estimated mean proportion of binaries with Ds/Dp > 0.18 among NEAs larger than 0.3 km is 15±4%. Among fastest rotating NEAs larger than 0.3 km with periods between 2.2-2.8 h, the mean proportion of such binaries is (66+10−12)%