Planetary Science Journal is very new. Yet, it’s highly pertinent to this blog, as the title indicates (truth in advertizing!). This paper in PSJ vol. 5 is, umm, important:
Sanchez, J. A. Reddy, V. Thirouin, A. The Population of Small Near-Earth Objects: Comp… art. 131 10.3847/psj/ad445f
The authors, targeting NEOs specifically (not, say, Main Belters or further) took lightcurve and spectral data, and on a nontrivial sample. I commend them on targeting a more-relevant population, and on the smaller bodies in it (<hundreds of meters diameter). The large NEOs (~kilometer) have been known for a while now, and have been studied: they’re the easier subjects. The Sanchez et al. spectra extend more than a bit into the near-infrared, which is more telling. (They go further than the Vera Rubin Observatory will. Significantly.) We can determine a good number of the asteroid types by their spectral signatures, which are poorly seen in visible light, or for some types not seen at all. In turn, asteroid typing gets us a long way towards asteroid size and composition. And, in another turn, a NEO of a more-favorable orbit, and interesting type, makes a great mission target, for science, for resources, for future colonization, or simply for threat assessment and possible response.
Thanks, Sanchez and crew; you’re doing valuable (maybe literally) work!