Description
Chair: Karri Muinonen
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Hanna Pentikäinen (University of Helsinki)28/05/2026, 15:00Oral
Asteroids exhibit special features in the way they scatter unpolarised incident sunlight: the nonlinear increase in brightness at small phase angles (the angle between the Sun and the observer seen from the object, α) and the negative degree of linear polarisation at α < 30°. Furthermore, there is a linear dependence of brightness on the phase angle in the magnitude scale at α > 10° due to...
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Antti Penttilä (University of Helsinki)28/05/2026, 15:15Oral
Camera systems and their operations need to be planned and tested beforehand in space missions. Furthermore, pipelines producing data products from instruments need to be in place and operating when actual observations start. With this in mind, we are developing a suite of tools for imaging simulation tools for small solar system objects. The immediate use cases are the ESA Hera and Comet...
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Elo Tuominen (University of Helsinki)28/05/2026, 15:30Oral
The orbital changes during a close encounter between a perturber asteroid and a test asteroid can be analyzed to estimate the mass of the perturber. The changes are constrained with astrometric observations, making precise astrometry vital for asteroid-mass estimation. Currently, the best astrometry for the purpose of mass estimation comes from ESA’s Gaia mission, which provides astrometry of...
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Zuri Gray (University of Helsinki)28/05/2026, 15:45Oral
We present the first polarimetric observations of the third discovered interstellar object (ISO), 3I/ATLAS (C/2025 N1, or 3I), obtained pre- and post-perihelion with FORS2 at the Very Large Telescope, ALFOSC at the Nordic Optical Telescope, and FoReRo2 at the 2 m Ritchey-Chrétien-Coudé telescope, over a phase angle range of 7.7–22.4°. This marks the second-ever polarimetric study of an ISO,...
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Rosemary Dorsey (University of Helsinki)28/05/2026, 16:00Oral
The Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) is expected to begin survey operations in 2026, and the resulting dataset will revolutionise our understanding of the Solar System. Its large on-sky footprint, fast cadence and deep limiting magnitude will probe small body populations to smaller sizes and larger distances than current ground based facilities, which will provide a fresh perspective on...
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