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P.S. Barrera-Pineda (Instituto Nacional de Astrofisica Optica y Electronica), A.J. Lovell (Agnes Scott College), M.V. Sykes (Univ. Arizona), F.P. Schloerb (FCRAO/UMass Amherst), L. Carrasco (Instituto Nacional de Astrofisica Optica y Electronica)
We have obtained submillimetric observations of the asteroids 4 Vesta and 2 Pallas at 870 \mu m, carried out with the MPIFR 19-channel bolometer on the Steward Observatory 10-m Submillimeter Telescope during December 2001 and May 2003. The result of these observations are fully sampled thermal lightcurves, folded according to rotational phase. Vesta lightcurves are similar single-peaked shapes for both epochs, but the variation in 2003 has approximately half the amplitude of that in 2001. Pallas has been observed at one epoch, at large geocentric distance; however, variations of 20% are still apparent in the lightcurve. For both asteroids, the general appearance of the lightcurves varies inversely to the visual lightcurves at the same rotational phase. We present the viewing geometry and thermal lightcurve of Pallas for comparison to visual lightcurves. We compare both epochs of Vesta lightcurves and compare to the geologic units derived from HST observations (Thomas et al, 1997; Binzel et al. 1997).
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: pbarrera@inaoep.mx
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 35 #4
© 2003. The American Astronomical Soceity.