Main Index

Welcome to the Asteroid Database

• Show detailed information on a specific asteroid. This includes items such as plots of spectra, light curves, as well as lists of estimates of mass, density, albedo, diameter, etc.
• Search Feature. You can search based on a very large number of parameters. This list can be saved and used later for comparison or plotting.
• Plotting. You can plot any of your saved data-sets, as well as some reference data-sets. The axis can be semimajor axis, eccentricity, inclination, and others. This allows you to create many different searches and then plot the results to see the difference.
• Spectra. You can display the spectra taken of asteroids and see it in plotted form. Dr. Gaffey's meteorite database is available to give a reference.
• Light Curves. You can see the plotted light curves for many asteroids.
• Taxonomic Classification. There are many different schemes to put the asteroids in categories. You can get the different classification for each research group and show the groupings, or you can just search for any that match, regardless of research group.
• Dynamic Families. You can show the families each research group has created, the members within a family, or all the families that an asteroid is in.
• Preferences - There is also a preferences page which lets you turn on and off features. You can display a list of asteroids and tell it to display or not display: name, number, group, taxonomic classification, dynamic family, mass, density, diameter, # of light curves and # of spectra.

Go to the Main Menu

Simple Tutorial

• Asteroid details
• Searching
• Other Queries
• Results and Plots

Asteroid details

• Type in "1" in the box at the very top of the webpage and hit "Submit". This will show you lots of info about Ceres.
• You can see that there are four values for its diameter and 11 different values for its mass. You can choose which research group is your favorite.
• You can see many of the light curves and spectra. You can click the "More Light Curves" since there are 28 of them and I only display four at a time.
• Taxonomic types - Click the "G" next to Tholen under Taxonomic Classification. This will show all the asteroids which are classified as a "G" under Tholen's taxonomy (as per the PDS data). Click back. Clicking "Tholen" will show you all the classifications he established and how many asteroids in each group.
• Families (part a) - Click on "Ceres" in the family list. This will show you all the members of the "Ceres" family (established by Zappala). You can follow the links to get more information about the families if you want. Click back.
• Families (part b) - Click on "Expanded List". This will show all four dynamic families that have Ceres in them. Thus you can see how close the different researchers agree.

Searches

• Click on "Search" from the top of the webpage.
• Search (part 1)
  • So there is an asteroid which has a name, but you are not sure how it is spelled.
  • Put in Er% into the Name field and press "Search." This will list all the asteroids which begin with Er. Only the first 50 will be shown (this can be changed in preferences.) You can show the entire list of asteroids by clicking the "Show All" at the bottom.
  • Now that we found asteroid 4954 Eric, lets click back and search for something else.
• Search (part 2)
  • Lets find all the Apollo asteroids.
  • First, put "1" in the Semimajor axis: Min.
  • Second, put 1.017 in the Perihelion: Max. This alone will bring up all the Apollo asteroids, about 2000. Your search should be limited to 50 (changeable in settings). Press "Submit".
  • Saving a search. Now that we have a list of asteroids, lets save them. At the bottom of the window you can plot or store the result. Lets give it the name "Apollo" and make up something for the description.
  • Press Store Results As. This will take you to the Results page. We'll do more with this later.
  • Click "Search" at the top of the window.
• Search (part 3)
  • Now, lets find Apollo asteroids that are about 1 km in size.
  • First, put "1" in the Semimajor axis: Min.
  • Second, put 1.017 in the Perihelion: Max.
  • Next, add a magnitude corresponding to about 1 km: H Min 17 Max 18.3. Press "Submit".
  • Save the search the same way as you did before, but give it a different name, like Big Apollos."
• The rest of the search items work in a similar manner, and you can always save the results of your search.

Other queries

• There are some preset queries as well as some templates to look through families and taxonomies.
• Click the "Menu" link at the top of the page.
• NEO
  • Lets make a list of all the NEO in the database.
  • Click the link for NEO. Only the first 50 will show up. You can move forward through the list 50 asteroids at a time, or click "All". Of note, there are over 600 asteroids, so it will take a while. Don't worry about saving this list since there is a preset NEO search for reference.
• Crossing. These will display asteroids which will cross the orbit of the planets. Click on Mars crossing to see the list of Mars crossers.
• Taxonomies (part 1)
  • You have already looked at this some, but here is something you may not have noticed. First click the "Taxonomies - broad search." Here you can choose a letter to search for, lets click K. Here you see 120 asteroids which have K in some part of its taxonomy. Bus and Binzel use both K, Sk, and Xk and Tedesco has KCT.
  • Click on the "Bus and Binzel - K" link. This will take you into a restrictive search that shows you only the asteroids with their taxonomy being exactly K. You may notice that the list shows the taxonomy given to the asteroids by Tholen. Thus, you can see where Bus/Binzel differ from Tholen.
  • Now lets go into "Preferences" to make Bus and Binzel our primary taxonomy classification. Click preference. Scroll down until you see Taxonomy. Choose the popup and select Bus and Binzel. Click Submit.
  • This will take your preferences. Click the button that says "Go Back To Previous Search" and hit your browser's reload button.
  • Now you will see the asteroids showing only "K", but it shows all research groups. You can see how 11066 has a * next to it. That means that another group has assigned to it the taxonomy of "K", and it isn't not in Bus and Binzel's taxonomy. In this case, Binzel has given it a "K" and could be added to the SMASS data set in the DPS node.
• Taxonomies (part 2)
  • Now let's look at the taxonomy by research group. Click Menu at the top of the window and "Taxonomy by Research Group". This will show a list of the taxonomy data-sets which are in the database.
  • Click on "Tholen". This shows all the categories that Tholen created and the number of entries in each.
  • Click "A". This shows you all four "A" type asteroids Tholen classified. You can also click the "Search all research groups for 'A'. This will show 16 A type asteroids.
  • Lets save this search. At the bottom of the page, look for Store Results As. Lets give it the name "A Taxonomy". Click the store button.
• Families
  • This has a similar structure to the taxonomies since there are many research groups and data-sets.
  • Click on Families by Research Group. This shows the list of research groups.
  • Click on "Zappala". This will bring up all the families that he created and the number of asteroids in each.
  • Click on the family Ceres. In this list you can see the taxonomic classification of the family and how much it varies.
  • Once the list of over 100 asteroids has been brought up, lets save the list. At the bottom, give it Ceres family and click "Save Results As.

Results and Plots

• Results
  • Click on the "Results" at the top of the page. You will see all three of the saved searches at the bottom of the window with options. Also, there is a Working List and a Recent Search. The Working List is useful for combining many searches into one. And the recent search is what we have already been working with.
  • Click on "Show Asteroids" on the Big Apollos data-set. It shows the list of asteroids in the database. Click back.
  • Click on "Statistics" on the Big Apollos data-set. This shows you the average for the orbital parameter as well as the D parameter. Click back.
• Plotting Apollo Asteroids
  • Now click "Plots" at the top of the window.
  • Select the "Big Apollo" data-set and then the plot button. Note, if there isn't a plot, your browser may be caching the image. This means that you may have to click plot twice to see the new plot. (Alternatively, you can click plot once, then click on the image and select reload to update the picture. This is faster for large data-sets).
  • While it is cool to see the Apollo asteroids, there isn't much context. Lets add the main belt asteroids to it.
  • Click on "Main Belt" and hit re-plot. You can turn on resonances if you want. Now you can see where the Apollo population fall in regards to the main belt.
• Plotting the Ceres family.
  • Select and click "plot". You can see how well clustered the Ceres family is.
  • Change the xscale to 2.6 and 2.8. Turn on the resonances and press Plot. In this zoomed in view, you can see there is about 0.1 AU distribution in semimajor axis. However, you can see that the Ceres class does not cross the resonance.
  • Note, if you change the scale and then select a different group of asteroids to plot, the old x/y range may make the plot not show anything. Thus, if you see no asteroids, check to see that the x/y scale are blank (or reasonable).
• Plot the V type.
  • Lets turn on the Tax V, and turn off the Ceres Family. Be sure to delete the X range you set. You can see that the V type are well clustered with some asteroids mixed around. You can also see that some of the vestoids have a similar orbit as the Apollos.
  • Finally, lets take a look at the distribution of magnitudes to distance.

Display options

• After the list is shown, click on the "Preferences" link at the top of the page.
• Turn off some of the fields - such as # of density or # of mass. Select your favorite Taxonomy. Turn "ON" Orbital Diagram. Click "Submit"