Dr. Carol Neese

Senior Research Associate
Planetary Science Institute

neese
@psi.edu


Research Interests: Current Projects:
Asteroid Subnode, Planetary Data System

Carol coordinates the archiving of groundbased and spacecraft data on asteroids and interplanetary dust, as part of the Asteroid/Dust Subnode of NASA's Planetary Data System (PDS). Current archiving projects include the data from the Hayabusa mission, a Japanese sample-return mission to the asteroid Itokawa, as well as Dawn, a mission to the large asteroids Vesta and Ceres, and the data from the dust instruments on Cassini, Galileo, and Ulysses. Past archiving projects include the NEAR mission to the asteroid Eros, and groundbased data including asteroid spectra, lightcurves, polarimetry, and radar data, as well as asteroid family classifications, albedos, proper elements, and many others. The complete archive can be accessed at the PDS Asteroid Subnode web site.

Sub-Kilometer Asteroid Diameter Survey

This program to characterize the size distribution of small main-belt asteroids involves PSI scientists Davis and Neese as well as collaborators Gladman, Petit, Jedicke, and others. The data, taken during a six night observing run with the KPNO 4m mosaic camera, included over 500 images covering an area of nine square degrees to a limiting magnitude of R=23.5. During 2002, a massive moving object detection code was used to detect approximately 1000-1300 asteroids per night, which were tracked from night to night. These detections have been linked to determine orbits and hence size estimates for the asteroids, and the data are currently being debiased and analyzed to determine a size distribution for the main belt down to sub-km diameters.

Other:

Carol also maintains the PSI web site.

Asteroid 9211 Neese has been named for her.


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