Asteroid taxonomy Virtual Observatory Resource

Authors
  1. Mahlke M.
  2. Carry B.
  3. Mattei P.A.
  4. Published by
    CDS
Abstract

The classification of the minor bodies of the Solar System based on observables has been continuously developed and iterated over the past 40 yr. While prior iterations followed either the availability of large observational campaigns or new instrumental capabilities opening new observational dimensions, we see the opportunity to improve primarily upon the established methodology. We developed an iteration of the asteroid taxonomy which allows the classification of partial and complete observations (i.e. visible, near-infrared, and visible-near-infrared spectrometry) and which reintroduces the visual albedo into the classification observables. The resulting class assignments are given probabilistically, enabling the uncertainty of a classification to be quantified. We built the taxonomy based on 2983 observations of 2125 individual asteroids, representing an almost tenfold increase of sample size compared with the previous taxonomy. The asteroid classes are identified in a lower-dimensional representation of the observations using a mixture of common factor analysers model. We identify 17 classes split into the three complexes C, M, and S, including the new Z-class for extremely-red objects in the main belt. The visual albedo information resolves the spectral degeneracy of the X-complex and establishes the P-class as part of the C-complex. We present a classification tool which computes probabilistic class assignments within this taxonomic scheme from asteroid observations, intrinsically accounting for degeneracies between classes based on the observed wavelength region. The taxonomic classifications of 6038 observations of 4526 individual asteroids are published. The ability to classify partial observations and the reintroduction of the visual albedo into the classification provide a taxonomy which is well suited for the current and future datasets of asteroid observations, in particular provided by the Gaia, MITHNEOS, NEO Surveyor, and SPHEREx surveys.

Keywords
  1. solar-system
  2. asteroids
  3. galaxy-classification-systems
Bibliographic source Bibcode
2022A&A...665A..26M
See also HTML
https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/A+A/665/A26
IVOA Identifier IVOID
ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/665/A26
Document Object Identifer DOI
doi:10.26093/cds/vizier.36650026

Access

Web browser access HTML
http://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/A+A/665/A26
https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/A+A/665/A26
http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/A+A/665/A26
IVOA Table Access TAP
http://tapvizier.cds.unistra.fr/TAPVizieR/tap
Run SQL-like queries with TAP-enabled clients (e.g., TOPCAT).

History

2022-09-06T12:34:10Z
Resource record created
2022-09-06T12:34:10Z
Created
2023-03-20T14:21:35Z
Updated

Contact

Name
CDS support team
Postal Address
CDS, Observatoire de Strasbourg, 11 rue de l'Universite, F-67000 Strasbourg, France
E-Mail
cds-question@unistra.fr