A Comparative Study of Infrared Asteroid Surveys: IRAS, AKARI, and WISE

摘要

We present a comparative study of three infrared asteroid surveys based onthe size and albedo data from the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS), theJapanese infrared satellite AKARI, and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer(WISE). Our study showed that: (i) the total number of asteroids detected withdiameter and albedo information with these three surveyors is 138,285, which islargely contributed by WISE; (ii) the diameters and albedos measured by thethree surveyors for 1,993 commonly detected asteroids are in good agreement,and within +/-10% in diameter and +/-22% in albedo at 1sigma deviation level.It is true that WISE offers size and albedo of a large fraction (>20%) of knownasteroids down to a few km bodies, but we would suggest that the IRAS and AKARIcatalogs compensate for larger asteroids up to several hundred km, especiallyin the main belt region. We discuss the complementarity of these three catalogsin order to facilitate the use of these data sets for characterizing thephysical properties of minor planets.