IRAS |
Infrared Astronomical Satellite, IRASThe IRAS Asteroid
and Comet Survey is the largest, most uniform and least biased
survey ever conducted of asteroids and comets. Because the
emission observed is thermal, the present survey is not plagued
by the albedo bias to which visible wavelength analogues are
susceptible. Asteroids and comets are bright infrared sources,
particularly at 25 microns. In addition to data for 25 comets and 1811 known asteroids, a search for sources moving across the sky more rapidly than about 1' per hour resulted in the discovery of six new comets, an extensive cometary debris trail, and two Apollo asteroids, one of which may be an extinct cometary nucleus. Asteroids and comets moving more slowly than 1' per hour would hours-confirm and thus reside in the Working Survey Database. Thirteen Asteroid and Comet data products were generated, of which four - the IRAS Asteroid Catalog, the Asteroid Statistics Catalog, the Low-Resolution Spectrometer Spectra of Selected Asteroids, and the IRAS Comet Catalog - are bound together with the Asteroid and Comet Explanatory Supplement and a User's Guide to the data products (see reference). The complete set of data products is listed in Table 8-1 of that volume. LAMBDA holds seven data products:
Reference: Version and release date: 1.0, 1986 Oct |