IRAS Low Resolution Spectra of Asteroids

Optical/near-infrared studies of asteroids are based on reflected sunlight and surface albedo variations create broad spectral features, suggestive of families of materials. There is a significant literature on these features, but there is very little work in the thermal infrared that directly probes the materials emitting on the surfaces of asteroids. We have searched for and extracted 534 thermal spectra of 245 asteroids from the original Dutch (Groningen) archive of spectra observed by the IRAS Low Resolution Spectrometer (LRS). We find that, in general, the observed shapes of the spectral continua are inconsistent with that predicted by the standard thermal model used by IRAS. Thermal models such as proposed by Harris (1998) and Harris et al.(1998) for the near-earth asteroids with the "beaming parameter" in the range of 1.0 to 1.2 best represent the observed spectral shapes. This implies that the IRAS Minor Planet Survey (IMPS, Tedesco, 1992) and the Supplementary IMPS (SIMPS, Tedesco, et al., 2002) derived asteroid diameters are systematically underestimated, and the albedos are overestimated. We have tentatively identified several spectral features that appear to be diagnostic of at least families of materials. The variation of spectral features with taxonomic class hints that thermal infrared spectra can be a valuable tool for taxonomic classification of asteroids.