Amy Mainzer

NEOWISE-R Caught the Luminous SN 2023ixf in Messier 101

The Astrophysical Journal · 2024-12-01 · 8 citations

Abstract During routine survey imaging, the reactivated Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE-R) serendipitously caught the Type II supernova SN 2023ixf in Messier 101 on the rise, starting day 3.6 through day 10.9, and again on the decline at late times from days 211 through 213 and days 370 through 372. We have considered these mid-IR data together with observations from the ultraviolet (UV) through the near-IR, when possible. At day 3.6 we approximated the optical emi…

The Sensitivity of NEO Surveyor to Low-perihelion Asteroids

The Planetary Science Journal · 2024-05-01 · 6 citations

Abstract Asteroids with low orbital perihelion distances experience extreme heating from the Sun that can modify their surfaces and trigger nontypical activity mechanisms. These objects are generally difficult to observe from ground-based telescopes due to their frequent proximity to the Sun. The Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor mission, however, will regularly survey down to solar elongations of 45° and is well suited for the detection and characterization of low-perihelion asteroids. Here, we…

Visual-band Brightnesses of Near-Earth Objects that will be Discovered in the Infrared by NEO Surveyor

The Planetary Science Journal · 2024-10-01 · 5 citations

Abstract Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor will detect asteroids and comets using mid-infrared thermal emission, however ground-based followup resources will require knowledge of the expected visible light brightness in order to plan characterization observations. Here we describe the range of visual-to-infrared colors that the NEOs detected by Surveyor will span, and demonstrate that for objects that have no previously reported Visual band observations, estimates of the Johnson Visual-band brigh…

Asteroid Impact Hazard Warning from the Near-Earth Object Surveyor Mission

The Planetary Science Journal · 2024-06-01 · 4 citations

Abstract NASA’s Near-Earth Object Surveyor mission, scheduled for launch in 2027 September, is designed to detect and characterize at least two-thirds of the potentially hazardous asteroids with diameters larger than 140 m in a nominal 5 yr mission. We describe a model to estimate the survey performance using a faster approach than the time domain survey simulator described in Mainzer et al. (2023). This model is applied to explain how the completeness for 5 and 10 yr surveys varies with orbit t…

NEOWISE Data and Thermophysical Modeling of 98943 Torifune (2001 CC ₂₁ )

The Planetary Science Journal · 2025-12-01 · 1 citations

Abstract The Hayabusa2 ♯ flyby target 98943 Torifune (2001 CC 21 ) has an uncertain size based on an uncertain albedo and absolute magnitude. We have collected all the NEOWISE observations of 2001 CC 21 from 2021 November through 2024 February, a total of 132 frames, and analyzed these data to estimate an infrared radiometric diameter. We analyze the multiepoch 3.4 and 4.6 μ m NEOWISE data using an ellipsoidal, rotating, cratered thermophysical model (TPM) to obtain estimates for the diameter, r…