Earth Quasi Satellite (469219) 2016 HO3 an asteroid, not Space Junk

At the 49th Annual Division for Planetary Sciences Meeting in Provo, Utah, astronomers led by Vishnu Reddy at the University of Arizona confirm true nature of one of Earth's companions on its journey around the sun.  

Was it a burned-out rocket booster, tumbling along a peculiar near-earth orbit around the sun, and only occasionally getting close enough to be studied with even the largest telescopes?

Not at all, as it turns out. While, based on previous observations, most astronomers had strongly suspected that object (469219) 2016 HO3 was an ordinary asteroid and not space junk, it took a team of astronomers led by Vishnu Reddy, assistant professor at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, working with one of the world’s largest telescopes, the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT), on Mt. Graham in Southeastern Arizona, to learn the true nature of this near-Earth object.

2016 HO3 is a small near-Earth object (NEO) measuring no more than 100 meters (330 feet) across that, while orbiting the Sun, also appears to circle around the Earth as a "quasi-satellite." Only five quasi-satellites have been discovered so far, but 2016 HO3 is the most stable of them. The provenance of this object is unknown. On timescales of a few centuries, 2016 HO3 remains within 38-100 lunar distances from us.

2016 HO3 is seen at the top left corner of this animation made of ten 2mn long exposures in I band using MODS1 on the left side of LBT - The telescope is tracking the moving asteroid, so background stars (and even a couple of galaxies) are trailed.  Credit LBTO

“While HO3 is close to the Earth, its small size – possibly not larger than 100 feet – makes it challenging target to study, said Reddy. “Our observations show that the HO3 rotates once every 28 minutes and is made of materials similar to asteroids." 

Soon after its discovery in 2016, astronomers were not sure where this object came from, but in a recent presentation at the annual Division for Planetary Sciences Conference of the American Astronomical Society in Provo, Utah, Reddy and his colleagues show that Earth’s new traveling buddy is an asteroid and not space junk. The new observations confirm that 2016 HO3 is a natural object of similar provenance to other small NEOs that zip by the Earth each month. 

"In an effort to constrain its rotation period and surface composition, we observed 2016 HO3 on April 14 and 18 with the Large Binocular Telescope and the Discovery Channel Telescope," Reddy said. "The derived rotation period and the spectrum of emitted light are not uncommon amongst small NEOs, suggesting that 2016 HO3 is a natural object of similar provenance to other small NEOs."

Light curve of 2016 HO3 showing the 28m rotation period of the asteroid
(MODS on LBT on Apr 14, and LMI on DCT on Apr 18)

In their presentation, "Ground-based Characterization of Earth Quasi Satellite (469219) 2016 HO3," Reddy and his co-authors, Olga Kuhn, Audrey Thirouin, Al Conrad, Renu Malhotra, Juan Sanchez, and Christian Veillet, point out that the light reflected off the surface of 2016 HO3 is similar to meteorites we have on Earth. 

One way to visualize HO3's orbit is by picturing a hula hoop dancer – the sun in this analogy – twirling two hoops around the hips at the same time, ever so slightly out of sync. While it orbits the sun, the object makes yearly loops (link to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMJc7gmychk ) around the Earth. As a result, the object appears to orbit the Earth, but it is not gravitationally bound to our planet.

"Of the near-Earth objects we know of, these types of objects would be the easiest to reach, so they could potentially make suitable targets for exploration," said Veillet, director of the LBT Observatory. "With its binocular arrangement of two 8.4-meter mirrors, coupled with a very efficient pair of imagers and spectrographs like MODS, LBT is ideally suited to the characterization of these Earth's companions." 

NASA Near-Earth Object Observations Program Grant NNX17AJ19G (PI: Reddy) funded parts of this work. 

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PIO Contact: Daniel W. Stolte +1 520-621-4402 stolte@email.arizona.edu
Science Contact at LPL: Vishnu Reddy reddy@lpl.arizona.edu
Science contact at LBTO: Christian Veillet cveillet@lbto.org

Reference:
"Ground-based Characterization of Earth Quasi Satellite (469219) 2016 HO3," Vishnu Reddy, Olga Kuhn, Audrey Thirouin, Al Conrad, Renu Malhotra, Juan A. Sanchez, Christian Veillet. 49th Annual Division for Planetary Sciences Meeting - Tuesday, October 17th, 2017. 204.07.

The LBT gets polarized: First light for the PEPSI polarimeters

Thanks to a cleverly designed "two-in-one" instrument attached to the world's most powerful telescope, astronomers can extract more clues about the properties of distant stars or exoplanets than previously possible. 

Developed at the Leibniz-Institute for Astrophysics in Potsdam, Germany, the Potsdam Echelle Polarimetric and Spectroscopic Instrument (PEPSI) saw first light on April 1, 2015, after being successfully installed at the Large Binocular Telescope Observatory (LBTO) in Arizona, USA. 

Once both of PEPSI's polarimeters were mounted in the focus points of each of the LBT's two 8.4-meter mirrors  in early September 2017, the telescope was pointed to the star gamma Equ and polarized light was received. From these spectra astronomers can, for example, deduce the geometry and strength of magnetic fields on the surfaces of distant stars, or study the reflected light from the atmospheres of potentially habitable exoplanets.

The DX (right side) polarimeter on LBT

A polarimeter separates starlight according to its oscillation planes. It is complementary to a spectrograph that, like a prism, separates light according to its oscillation frequencies (or color). The two combined, polarimeter and spectrograph, added to a powerful telescope, enable astronomers to obtain spectra in polarized light. This in turn allows the characterization of the full wave-front of the incoming stellar light and extract details of its radiation physics that otherwise remain hidden. 

A series of integrations in circularly and linearly polarized light was obtained when the telescope was pointed to the magnetic reference star Gamma Equulei, or gamma Equ, a double star located about 118 light-years from Earth. These spectra have a spectral resolution of R=120,000, that means they can resolve two wavelengths only five hundredths of a hydrogen atom’s diameter apart. They cover two large wavelength regions in the visible light simultaneously, and have an unprecedented signal-to-noise ratio. Because the two polarimeters for each of LBT's "eyes" are identical and modular in design, circular and linear polarizations were obtained simultaneously. 

 First polarimetric spectrum from PEPSI. The target is the bright magnetic A9VpSrCrEu star gamma Equ. The black line is the PEPSI spectrum and the red line is, for comparison, the HARPS-Pol  spectrum. From top to bottom: the magnetic null spectrum enlarged by a factor five, the normalized linear Stokes component U/Ic enlarged by a factor 5, the normalized linear Stokes component Q/Ic  enlarged by a factor 5, the normalized circular Stokes component V/Ic, and the normalized integral light I/Ic. Because the two polarimeters for each of LBT's "eyes" are identical and modular in design, circular and linear polarizations were obtained simultaneously. 

The gamma Equ test also included a so-called null spectrum, which is obtained by swapping the observation sequence in the two fibers. Ideally, it would give zero polarization and be independent of wavelength. Any residual polarization would be due to instrumental effects.  

“The null spectrum for PEPSI shows an extraordinary low degree of polarization noise caused by the instrument,"  says its principal investigator, Prof. Dr. Klaus Strassmeier, Research Branch Director at AIP  and a professor of astronomy at the University of Potsdam. "Compared with the best spectropolarimeters currently available at other telescopes, it's probably better by a factor of ten." 

“Eventually, the PEPSI polarimeters will enable stellar magnetic field measurements with extremely high precision," adds PEPSI’s project scientist Dr. Ilya Ilyin. 

The SX (left side) polarimeter on LBT

For Dr. Christian Veillet, LBTO Director, “In the 8-10m class telescope select club, PEPSI was already a unique instrument, thanks to its resolution coupled to two 8.4-m mirrors simultaneously available. The addition of a polarimeter on each of LBT’s eyes gives LBTO yet another unique capability. It comes as a precious complement to interferometry, which gives LBT's two eyes the imaging resolution of a 23-m telescope."

The PEPSI instrument is available to all LBT partners.






The press release at AIP is here.

More information about PEPSI here.

Science contacts:
Prof. Dr. Klaus G. Strassmeier (Principal Investigator), +49 331-7499 223, kstrassmeier@aip.de
Dr. Ilya Ilyin (project scientist), +49 331-7499 269, ilyin@aip.de

Media contacts:
Katrin Albaum (AIP), +49 331-7499 803, presse@aip.de
Christian Veillet (Large Binocular Telescope Observatory),+1 520-349-4576, cveillet@lbto.org

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The key areas of research at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) are cosmic magnetic fields and extragalactic astrophysics. A considerable part of the institute's efforts aim at the development of research technology in the fields of spectroscopy, robotic telescopes, and e-science. The AIP is the successor of the Berlin Observatory founded in 1700 and of the Astrophysical Observatory of Potsdam founded in 1874. The latter was the world's first observatory to emphasize explicitly the research area of astrophysics. The AIP has been a member of the Leibniz Association since 1992.

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The LBT is an international collaboration among institutions in the United States, Italy and Germany. LBT Corporation partners are: The University of Arizona on behalf of the Arizona Board of Regents; Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, Italy; LBT Beteiligungsgesellschaft, Germany, representing the Max-Planck Society, The Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam, and Heidelberg University; The Ohio State University, and The Research Corporation, on behalf of The University of Notre Dame, University of Minnesota and University of Virginia.

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