TY - JOUR
T1 - Rotation periods of asteroids serendipitously observed by the NASA/Kepler K2 mission
AU - Sergeyev, A. V.
AU - Carry, B.
AU - Eggl, S.
AU - Berthier, J.
AU - Santerne, A.
AU - Vachier, F.
AU - Shevchenko, V. G.
N1 - S.E. acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation through Collaborative Research: Rubin Rocks: Enabling near-Earth asteroid science with LSST NSF Award Number: 2307570. A.V.S. acknowledges support from the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) and the PAUSE program for refugees through ANR-PAUSE funding. This research was supported by the International Research Travel Award Program-Ukraine (APS IRTAPUkraine) of the American Physical Society, with funding provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The properties of Solar System objects were retrieved using the rocks1 python client of the SsODNet Virtual Observatory (VO) Web service2 (Berthier et al. 2023). This research used the IMCCE’s Miriade3 VO Web service (Berthier et al. 2009) and TOPCAT4 VO client (Taylor 2005). Thanks to all the developers and maintainers.
S.E. acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation through Collaborative Research: Rubin Rocks: Enabling near-Earth asteroid science with LSST NSF Award Number: 2307570. A.V.S. acknowledges support from the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) and the PAUSE program for refugees through ANR-PAUSE funding. This research was supported by the International Research Travel Award Program-Ukraine (APS IRTAPU-kraine) of the American Physical Society, with funding provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The properties of Solar System objects were retrieved using the rocks 1 python client of the SsODNet Virtual Observatory (VO) Web service2 (Berthier et al. 2023). This research used the IMCCE’s Miriade3 VO Web service (Berthier et al. 2009) and TOPCAT4 VO client (Taylor 2005). Thanks to all the developers and maintainers.
PY - 2025/11/1
Y1 - 2025/11/1
N2 - Context. Understanding the rotational periods of asteroids is crucial for gaining insights into their internal structures, compositions, and collisional histories. NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, during its K2 extension (2014–2018), serendipitously observed numerous asteroids while surveying the ecliptic plane, providing a unique photometric dataset. Aims. By analyzing photometric data from the K2 mission, we aimed to determine the rotational periods of asteroids that crossed Kepler’s field of view, focusing on objects with an apparent magnitude of 19 or brighter that appeared in the Kepler target pixel files at least ten times. Methods. We developed an algorithm to identify asteroid crossings in the Kepler data and extract photometric light curves. The Lomb–Scargle periodogram method was employed to determine the rotational periods from the extracted light curves due to its robustness in handling unevenly sampled data. Noise and systematic errors were mitigated through photometric corrections using co-trending basis vectors. Results. We extracted and analyzed 4,596 light curves from 2,418 asteroids observed during the Kepler/K2 mission. This allowed us to compute rotation periods for 559 asteroids. We found that 375 of these asteroids had previously known periods. The rotation periods determined for 295 of the asteroids in this study agree with existing asteroid rotation periods from the literature, validating our approach. We report new rotation periods and their light curve amplitudes for 184 asteroids, expanding the catalog of known asteroid rotation periods. Conclusions. The analysis of rotation periods from the Kepler K2 mission data has provided valuable insights into the physical characteristics of main-belt asteroids. Our results are consistent with existing data and expand the catalog of known asteroid rotation periods. These findings contribute to our understanding of asteroid dynamics and will aid future research in planetary science and asteroid exploration.
AB - Context. Understanding the rotational periods of asteroids is crucial for gaining insights into their internal structures, compositions, and collisional histories. NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, during its K2 extension (2014–2018), serendipitously observed numerous asteroids while surveying the ecliptic plane, providing a unique photometric dataset. Aims. By analyzing photometric data from the K2 mission, we aimed to determine the rotational periods of asteroids that crossed Kepler’s field of view, focusing on objects with an apparent magnitude of 19 or brighter that appeared in the Kepler target pixel files at least ten times. Methods. We developed an algorithm to identify asteroid crossings in the Kepler data and extract photometric light curves. The Lomb–Scargle periodogram method was employed to determine the rotational periods from the extracted light curves due to its robustness in handling unevenly sampled data. Noise and systematic errors were mitigated through photometric corrections using co-trending basis vectors. Results. We extracted and analyzed 4,596 light curves from 2,418 asteroids observed during the Kepler/K2 mission. This allowed us to compute rotation periods for 559 asteroids. We found that 375 of these asteroids had previously known periods. The rotation periods determined for 295 of the asteroids in this study agree with existing asteroid rotation periods from the literature, validating our approach. We report new rotation periods and their light curve amplitudes for 184 asteroids, expanding the catalog of known asteroid rotation periods. Conclusions. The analysis of rotation periods from the Kepler K2 mission data has provided valuable insights into the physical characteristics of main-belt asteroids. Our results are consistent with existing data and expand the catalog of known asteroid rotation periods. These findings contribute to our understanding of asteroid dynamics and will aid future research in planetary science and asteroid exploration.
KW - methods: data analysis
KW - minor planets, asteroids: general
KW - surveys
KW - techniques: photometric
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105023410513
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105023410513#tab=citedBy
U2 - 10.1051/0004-6361/202554052
DO - 10.1051/0004-6361/202554052
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:105023410513
SN - 0004-6361
VL - 703
JO - Astronomy and Astrophysics
JF - Astronomy and Astrophysics
M1 - A302
ER -