The June issue of Astronomical Journal (vol. 169 #6) brings us:
B. T. Bolin, C. Fremling, M. Belyakov, et al. Keck and Gemini Characterization of Hayabusa2# Rendezvous Target 1998 KY26 303 adccbe
(The DES Collaboration) Photometry of Outer Solar System Objects from the Dark Energy Survey. II. A Joint Analysis of Trans-Neptunian Absolute Magnitudes, Colors, Light Curves an… 305 adc459
The Hayabusa2 mission- now an extended mission, Hayabusa2#- will (eventually…) reach asteroid 1998 KY26. We’ve already had one surprise- it appears to be a dark comet, exhibiting recoil from its activity not being symmetric. We don’t particularly need any more surprises; the Haya2 spacecraft is old and not ideal for this investigation. So we characterize the body as best we can, given the limits of remote sensing. Keck and Gemini are large, in-demand telescopes, requiring significant justification before they will award observing time. Apparently that justification was there.
The Mayall and Blanco 4-meter telescopes are not as large, not as in-demand. Thus, we equipped them with two instruments (a wide-field camera and spectrograph) for the multi-year Dark Energy Survey. However, in the course of the Survey, the observatories catch asteroids by chance. Between a large Survey area, and a (fairly) large telescope aperture, the number of asteroids caught has been significant, and DES results can be sifted for significant results. Here, the DES team describes their catch; specifically, the Kuiper Belt small bodies they got without even trying.