Small body harvest with the Antarctic Search for Transiting Exoplanets (ASTEP) project

• Published in: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
• Main Authors: Hasler, S, N, Burdanov, A, Y, de Wit, J, Dransfield, G, Abe, L, Agabi, A, Bendjoya, P, Crouzet, N, Guillot, T, Mékarnia, D, Schmider, François-Xavier, Suarez, O, Triaud, A, H M J
• Other Authors: Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences MIT, Cambridge (EAPS), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Midlands Ultracold Atom Research Centre, School of Physics and Astronomy Nottingham, University of Nottingham, UK (UON)-University of Nottingham, UK (UON), School of Physics and Astronomy Birmingham, University of Birmingham Birmingham, Joseph Louis LAGRANGE (LAGRANGE), Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (1965 - 2019) (UNS)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur, Université Côte d'Azur (UniCA)-Université Côte d'Azur (UniCA)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur (UniCA), L'Institut polaire français Paul-Emile Victor (IPEV), Ministère de l'Education nationale, de l’Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche (M.E.N.E.S.R.), Laboratoire de Cosmologie, Astrophysique Stellaire & Solaire, de Planétologie et de Mécanique des Fluides (CASSIOPEE), Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur (OCA), Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2023
• Subjects: techniques image processing -telescopes -minor planets; asteroids general -software development -exoplanets; techniques; image processing -telescopes -minor planets; asteroids; general -software; development -exoplanets; [SDU]Sciences of the Universe [physics]; Antarctic; The Antarctic; Austral; Concordia Station; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-04532654; https://hal.science/hal-04532654/document; https://hal.science/hal-04532654/file/stad2943.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad2943

International audience ABSTRACT Small Solar system bodies serve as pristine records that have been minimally altered since their formation. Their observations provide valuable information regarding the formation and evolution of our Solar system. Interstellar objects can also provide insight on the formation of exoplanetary systems and planetary system evolution as a whole. In this work, we present the application of our framework to search for small Solar system bodies in exoplanet transit survey data collected by the Antarctic Search for Transiting ExoPlanets (ASTEP) project. We analysed data collected during the Austral winter of 2021 by the ASTEP 400 telescope located at the Concordia Station, at Dome C, Antarctica. We identified 20 known objects from dynamical classes ranging from Inner Main-belt asteroids to one comet. Our search recovered known objects down to a magnitude of V = 20.4 mag, with a retrieval rate of ∼80 per cent for objects with V ≤ 20 mag. Future work will apply the pipeline to archival ASTEP data that observed fields for periods of longer than a few hours to treat them as deep-drilling data sets and reach fainter limiting magnitudes for slow-moving objects, on the order of V ≈ 23–24 mag.