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IR STIG Webinar

Infrared Science and Technology Integration Group

DATE

Mar 01, 2022

TIME

3:00 pm EST

COMMUNITY

IR STIG

TYPE

Webinar

Hunting Asteroids in the Infrared: NEOWISE and NEO Surveyor

Dr. Joseph Masiero (Caltech/IPAC

Thermal infrared observations are an ideal tool for studying the small bodies of the Solar system. Not only are asteroids some of the brightest objects in the sky at thermal wavelengths, but measurements of their brightness allow us to directly constrain their sizes. These capabilities allowed the NEOWISE mission, during its seven month cryogenic phase, to discover over 30,000 new objects and measure sizes and albedos for over 130,000 asteroids. I will highlight some of the results of the original NEOWISE survey, discuss its continued output during the post-cryo Reactivation mission, and describe how we are taking the lessons learned from NEOWISE to design the next generation asteroid survey mission: NEO Surveyor.

Short Bio: Dr. Joseph Masiero is a Scientist at Caltech/IPAC, working on the NEO Surveyor mission. Joe is also Deputy PI of the NEOWISE mission. His research focuses on the physical and dynamical properties of asteroids in the Near-Earth and Main Belt populations.

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An illustration of Sun-like star HD 181327 and its surrounding debris disk. The star is at top right. It is surrounded by a far larger debris disk that forms an incomplete ellpitical path and is cut off at right. There’s a huge cavity between the star and the disk. The debris disk is shown in shades of light gray. Toward the top and left, there are finer, more discrete points in a range of sizes. The disk appears hazier and smokier at the bottom. The star is bright white at center, with a hazy blue region around it. The background of space is black. The label Artist's Concept appears at lower left.