Extracting Asteroid Physical Properties from Vera C. Rubin Observatory Science Validation Survey Data: Rotational Periods, Colors, and Taxonomies
astro-ph.EP, astro-ph.IM
Submitted: 2026-09-24
Updated: 2026-09-24
Comments: 104 pages, 43 figures. Accepted for publication in Planetary and Space Science
Code: https://github.com/rubin-dp0/delegate-contributions-dp03
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
The gist: The Vera C.
Terminology
Abstract
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory will enable large-scale characterization of minor bodies through high-cadence, multi-band photometry. Early Science Validation (SV) observations from 2025-2026 provide one of the first extensive datasets for Solar System studies, but typically with sparser and more heterogeneous coverage than the Rubin First Look data, where hundreds of observations were available for well-characterized objects. In this work, we build on the methodology developed for the Rubin First Look data to extract asteroid rotation periods, amplitudes, colors, and taxonomic classifications from early Rubin SV data using multi-band (griz) photometry. Rotation periods are determined through a combination of high-order Fourier light-curve fitting and multi-band Lomb-Scargle analysis. A unified light-curve model is then used to derive rotation-corrected colors, which are converted into taxonomic classes using calibrated color indices and spectral slopes. We validate the method on objects with sufficient observational coverage and show that preliminary physical properties can be estimated from sparse and irregular datasets, while robust determinations require improved temporal coverage. By simulating sparsely observed data, we identify the observational conditions required for period determinations. The inclusion of z-band photometry extends traditional color-based taxonomy and improves compositional discrimination relative to gri-only analyses.
Sources
- The Pan-STARRS1 Surveys
- A million asteroid observations in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
- J-PLUS: A first glimpse at spectrophotometry of asteroids -- The MOOJa catalog
- Gaia Data Release 3: Reflectance spectra of Solar System small bodies
- Asteroids' reflectance from Gaia DR3: Artificial reddening at near-UV wavelengths
- Rotation periods of asteroids from light curves of TESS data
- The Absolute Magnitude of the Sun in Several Filters
- SsODNet: The Solar system Open Database Network
- A Census Before Rubin of Asteroid Families in the Main Belt
- Gaia DR3 supervised classification of asteroid reflectance spectra
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