Fundación Galileo Galilei - INAF Telescopio Nazionale Galileo 28°45'14.4N 17°53'20.6W 2387.2m A.S.L.

Seminars at FGG

Chasing elusive very small asteroids with NOT

Speaker: Grigori Fedorets (University of Helsinki (Finland))

Date and time: 2024-10-04 13:00

Exploring the composition of small bodies of the Solar system is one of the best ways of probing the early evolution of the Solar system.The population of small asteroids (~100 m, and up to 2 km in diameter) is generally believed to consist of gravitational aggregates, which complicates the picture. It has been hypothesized that the smallest asteroids (~1-10 m) are the undividable monolithic building blocks. Such asteroids are very faint, and are observable only during brief periods of close flybys with the Earth. In this talk I will present the ongoing work that permits carriying out observations of these elusive objects ar the NOT.