Main belt asteroids (6070) Rheinland and (54827) 2001NQ8 belong to a small population of couples of bodies which reside on very similar heliocentric orbits. Vokrouhlicky & Nesvorny (2008, AJ 136, ...280) promoted a term "asteroid pairs", pointing out their common origin within the past tens to hundreds of ky. Previous attempts to reconstruct the initial configuration of Rheinland and 2001NQ8 at the time of their separation have led to the prediction that Rheinland's rotation should be retrograde. Here we report extensive photometric observations of this asteroid and use the lightcurve inversion technique to directly determine its rotation state and shape. We confirm the retrograde sense of rotation of Rheinland, with obliquity value constrained to be >= 140 deg. The ecliptic longitude of the pole position is not well constrained as yet. The asymmetric behavior of Rheinland's lightcurve reflects a sharp, near-planar edge in our convex shape representation of this asteroid. Our calibrated observations in the red filter also allow us to determine \(H_R = 13.68\pm 0.05\) and \(G = 0.31\pm 0.05\) values of the H-G system. With the characteristic color index \(V-R = 0.49\pm 0.05\) for the S-type asteroids, we thus obtain \(H = 14.17\pm 0.07\) for the absolute magnitude of (6070) Rheinland. This a significantly larger value than previously obtained from analysis of the astrometric survey observations. We next use the obliquity constraint for Rheinland to eliminate some degree of uncertainty in the past propagation of its orbit. This is because the sign of the past secular change of its semimajor axis due to the Yarkovsky effect is now constrained. Determination of the rotation state of the secondary component, asteroid (54827) 2001NQ8, is the key element in further constraining the age of the pair and its formation process.
The near-Earth asteroid (3200) Phaethon is an intriguing object: its perihelion is only at 0.14 au and is associated with the Geminid meteor stream. We aim to use all available disk-integrated ...optical data to derive reliable convex shape model of Phaethon. By interpreting the
available space- and ground-based thermal infrared data and Spitzer spectra using a thermophysical model, we also aim to further constrain its size, thermal inertia, and visible geometric albedo. We apply the convex inversion method to the new optical data obtained by six instruments together with the already existing observations. The convex shape model is then used as an input for the thermophysical modeling. We also study the long-term stability of Phaethon’s orbit and spin axis by a numerical orbital and rotation-state integrator We present a new convex shape model and rotational state of Phaethon – sidereal rotation period of 3.603958(2) h and ecliptic coordinates of the preferred pole orientation of (319◦ , −39◦) with a 5◦ uncertainty. Moreover, we derive its size (D=5.1±0.2 km), thermal inertia (Γ=600±200 J m-2s -1/2K -1), geometric visible albedo (pV=0.122±0.008), and estimate the macroscopic surface roughness.
We also find that the Sun illumination at the perihelion passage during past thousands of years is not connected to a specific area on the surface implying non-preferential heating.
