2012 and 2017 light curves of asteroid 2012 TC4 Virtual Observatory Resource

Authors
  1. Lee H.-J.
  2. Durech J.
  3. Vokrouhlicky D.
  4. Pravec P.
  5. Moon H.-K.
  6. Ryan W.,Kim M.-J.
  7. Kim C.-H.
  8. Choi Y.-J.
  9. Bacci P.
  10. Pollock J.
  11. Apitzsch R.
  12. Published by
    CDS
Abstract

Asteroid 2012TC4 is a small (~10m) near-Earth object that was observed during its Earth close approaches in 2012 and 2017. Earlier analyses of light curves revealed its excited rotation state. We collected all available photometric data from the two apparitions to reconstruct its rotation state and convex shape model. We show that light curves from 2012 and 2017 cannot be fitted with a single set of model parameters; the rotation and precession periods are significantly different for these two data sets, and they must have changed between or during the two apparitions. Nevertheless, we could fit all light curves with a dynamically self-consistent model assuming that the spin states of 2012TC4 in 2012 and 2017 were different. To interpret our results, we developed a numerical model of its spin evolution in which we included two potentially relevant perturbations: (I) gravitational torque due to the Sun and Earth and (II) radiation torque, known as the Yarkovsky-O'Keefe-Radzievskii-Paddack (YORP) effect. Despite our model simplicity, we found that the role of gravitational torques is negligible. Instead, we argue that the observed change of its spin state may be plausibly explained as a result of the YORP torque. To strengthen this interpretation, we verify that (I) the internal energy dissipation due to material inelasticity and (II) an impact with a sufficiently large interplanetary particle are both highly unlikely causes of its observed spin state change. If true, this is the first case where the YORP effect has been detected for a tumbling body.

Keywords
  1. asteroids
  2. solar-system
  3. infrared-photometry
  4. visible-astronomy
Bibliographic source Bibcode
2021AJ....161..112L
See also HTML
https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/AJ/161/112
IVOA Identifier IVOID
ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/AJ/161/112
Document Object Identifer DOI
doi:10.26093/cds/vizier.51610112

Access

Web browser access HTML
http://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/AJ/161/112
https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/AJ/161/112
http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/AJ/161/112
IVOA Table Access TAP
http://tapvizier.cds.unistra.fr/TAPVizieR/tap
Run SQL-like queries with TAP-enabled clients (e.g., TOPCAT).

History

2021-05-03T06:55:42Z
Resource record created
2021-05-03T06:55:42Z
Created
2021-07-05T12:59:30Z
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