J/AJ/170/353 Mass estimates of 1783 asteroids (Fuentes-Munoz+, 2025)
Asteroid mass estimation by mutual perturbations during close encounters after
Gaia Focused Product Release.
Fuentes-Munoz O., Farnocchia D., Giorgini J.D., Park R.S.
<Astron. J., 170, 353 (2025)>
=2025AJ....170..353F 2025AJ....170..353F
ADC_Keywords: Minor planets
Keywords: Asteroids ; Orbit determination ; Astrometry ; Gaia
Abstract:
Mutual perturbations between asteroids during close encounters allow
the estimation of their masses using precise astrometric observations.
We use all astrometry reported to the Minor Planet Center,
high-precision astrometry from ESA's Gaia Focused Product Release, and
radar delay-Doppler data when available. A search for close encounters
between all known asteroids and a preliminary list of the largest
asteroids leads to approximately 975,000 asteroids that may have been
perturbed in a measurable way. We find about 86,000 asteroids with
signal in their astrometry for one or more asteroid masses. The
multidimensional, weighted combination of all estimates yields
77 asteroid masses with signal-to-noise ratio SNR>10, and 232 asteroid
masses with SNR>3, all in the main belt or outer main belt. We did not
find any signal for individual masses of Trojans, Centaurs, or
Trans-Neptunian Objects. From the estimated asteroid masses, we derive
updated density estimates for asteroids with well-determined
diameters. The updated total main belt mass estimate
(sum-of-all-a<4.6AU, H<18) is (13.11±0.06)x10-10M☉.
Description:
As a starting list of perturbers, we take the 343 main-belt asteroids
considered by Park+2021AJ....161..105P; some uncertainties were
obtained in Farnocchia+2021Icar..36914594F). Then, we query JPL's
Small-Body Database for all objects with H<12 to obtain diameters,
absolute magnitudes, albedos, their uncertainties, and taxonomic
groups. Using this information, we infer their masses assuming a
density from their taxonomies when other estimates are not available.
Most of the diameters come from NEOWISE (Masiero+2021PSJ.....2..162M).
We select asteroids with mass parameters (GM) larger than
0.003km3/s2 to build the perturber list. After this analysis, we
build a list consisting of 1005 inner, main, and outer-belt asteroids,
the NEO Eros, 193 Trojans, 131 Centaurs, and 453 TNOs with estimated
masses >0.5km3/s2.
From the 1783 perturber asteroids masses we attempted to estimate, we
find 232 estimates with SNR>3, and 78 with 2<SNR<3.
File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
table5.dat 828 1783 Asteroid initial masses and uncertainties
table6.dat 119 310 232 Mass estimates obtained with SNR>3;
78 obtained with SNR>2
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See also:
I/355 : Gaia DR3 Part 1. Main source (Gaia Collaboration, 2022)
J/ApJ/743/1 : Astrometry of 7 wide trans-Neptunian binaries (Parker+, 2011)
J/A+A/565/A56 : Astrometric asteroid masses (Goffin, 2014)
J/A+A/576/A8 : ADAM: 3D asteroid shape reconstruction code (Viikinkoski+, 2015)
J/AJ/154/76 : Masses of 30 large subject asteroids (Baer+, 2017)
J/A+A/623/A132 : SPHERE/ZIMPOL (41) Daphne images (Carry+, 2019)
J/A+A/641/A80 : Asteroid (31) Euphrosyne R-band images (Yang+, 2020)
J/A+A/650/A129 : SPHERE (87) Sylvia images (Carry+, 2021)
J/A+A/654/A56 : Largest main belt asteroids data (Vernazza+, 2021)
J/A+A/662/A71 : (22) Kalliope SPHERE images and shape models (Ferrais+, 2022)
J/A+A/679/A60 : Properties of slowly rotating asteroids (Marciniak+ 2023)
J/A+A/670/A52 : (65) Cybele VLT/SPHERE disk-resolved images (Marsset+, 2023)
J/AJ/167/104 : Patroclus-Menoetius mutual events season 2024 (Brozovic+, 2024)
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table5.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 22 A22 --- Asteroid Asteroid
24- 26 A3 --- Group Group (1)
28- 41 F14.9 km3/s2 GMini [4.4e-4/1099] Initial mass parameter
43- 53 E11.9 km3/s2 e_GMini [1.2e-7/153.92] 1σ uncertainty in GMini
55- 64 A10 --- r_GMini Reference or methods for GMini (2)
66- 77 F12.9 km3/s2 GMfin [3.1e-3/62.64]? Final mass parameter
79- 89 F11.9 km3/s2 e_GMfin [6e-4/0.094]? 1σ uncertainty in GMfin
91- 95 I5 --- Ntest [0/48975] Number of test asteroids that
encountered each perturber asteroid (3)
97- 100 I4 --- Nsign [0/2046] Number of asteroids for which the a
posteriori mass estimate uncertainty was
reduced (4)
102- 777 A676 --- List List of objects for which there was signal
(5)
779- 797 A19 --- Bibcode ADS Bibcode of GM
799- 819 A21 --- Shortbib Short reference, author+year, for GM
821- 828 I8 --- SPKID [21/54487296] JPL Small-Body Database SPK-ID
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Note (1): Groups as follows:
CEN = Centaurs (121 occurrences)
MBA = Main-belt asteroids (843 occurrences)
NEO = Near-earth Object (2 occurrences)
OMB = Outer Main-belt asteroids (160 occurrences)
TNO = Trans-neptunian object (453 occurrences)
TRO = Trojans (193 occurrences)
Note (2): The GM value is taken from Park+2021 (SSB441; 2021AJ....161..105P 2021AJ....161..105P),
other references in the literature ("Bin-#" = binary asteroid estimated value
from reference #) or inferred from the taxonomic type and literature diameters
following the densities of Table 1. If there is no taxonomic type associated
with the asteroid, we assume a density of 2±1g/cm3 except for TNOs, for
which we assume 1±1g/cm3 to more closely match the masses in the
literature. The reference numbers for "Bin-#" are:
1 = Petit+1997
2 = Marchis+2008a
3 = Marchis+2008b
4 = Ragozzine+2009
5 = Descamps+2009a
6 = Benecchi+2010
7 = Parker+2011, J/ApJ/743/1
8 = Grundy+2011
9 = Patzold+2011
10 = Grundy+2012
11 = Russell+2012
12 = Brown+2013
13 = Fraser+2013
14 = Marchis+2013
15 = Marchis+2014
16 = Beauvalet&Marchis2014
17 = Grundy+2015
18 = Yang+2016
19 = Russell+2016
20 = Pajuelo+2018
21 = Carry+2019, J/A+A/623/A132
22 = Kiss+2019
23 = Grundy+2019a
24 = Grundy+2019b
25 = Yang+2020, J/A+A/641/A80
26 = Broz+2021
27 = Holler+2021
28 = Brown+2021
29 = Ferrais+2022, J/A+A/662/A71
30 = Vachier+2022
31 = Brozovic+2024b, J/AJ/167/104
Note (3): The number of test asteroids that encountered each
perturber asteroid, for which we re-computed the orbit and
attempted to estimate a mass.
Note (4): Number of asteroids for which the a posteriori mass
estimate uncertainty was reduced to the a priori, indicating
signal of the perturber mass in the astrometry.
Note (5): List of the first 100 objects for which there was signal,
sorted by uncertainty, smallest uncertainty first (i.e., largest
signal), truncating lists longer than 100 objects with "...".
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Byte-by-byte Description of file: table6.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 4 I4 --- Asteroid [1/5603] Asteroid
6- 17 F12.9 km3/s2 GM [3.1e-3/62.64] Mass parameter
19- 29 F11.9 km3/s2 e_GM [6e-4/0.094] 1σ uncertainty in GM
31- 44 F14.9 --- SNR [2/3378.5] Signal-to-noise ratio (1)
46 A1 --- SNR-lit [*] *=Indicate masses with literature
estimates of at least 2*SNR
48- 54 F7.3 km Diam [30.81/939.4] Distance
56- 57 I2 km e_Diam [1/15]? 1σ uncertainty in Diam
59- 77 A19 --- Diam-Bibcode ADS bibcode reference for Diam
79- 94 A16 --- Diam-Shortbib Short references, author+year, for Diam
(3)
96- 107 F12.9 g/cm3 Dens [0.38/65.54] Density (2)
109- 119 F11.9 g/cm3 e_Dens [0.053/1.51]? 1σ uncertainty in
Dens
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Note (1): Estimates obtained with SNR>2 indicate a potentially
unreliable mass estimate.
Note (2): Densities higher than 5 g/cm3 might indicate a potentially
unreliable mass or density estimate.
Note (3): Reference occurrences and catalog as follows:
Hanus+2017a = 20 occurrences
Viikinkoski+2017 = 11 occurrences
Carry+2021 = 1 occurrences; J/A+A/650/A129
Vernazza+2021 = 37 occurrences; J/A+A/654/A56
Ferrais+2022 = 1 occurrence; J/A+A/662/A71
Marsset+2023 = 1 occurrence; J/A+A/670/A52
Marciniak+2023 = 1 occurrence; J/A+A/679/A60
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History:
From electronic version of the journal
License: CC-BY-4.0
(End) Prepared by [AAS], Robin Leichtnam [CDS] 07-Sep-2026