UCLA

The purpose of this work is to describe and advance the use of radar data for the determination of asteroid orbits, shapes, and physical characteristics. The data used for these goals include radar images and spectra, as well as radar range and velocity measurements. Herein, I describe improved algorithms for the inversion of asteroid shapes from radar images and spectra, and demonstrate that these algorithms improve shape determination runtime by a factor of two, as well as improve accuracy. I also use radar astrometry, along with optical plane-of-sky observations, to accurately determine asteroid orbits. The results, applied across a sample of 159 near-Earth asteroids, demonstrate that it is possible to constrain the physical characteristics of these objects using dynamics. I also use the size of this sample (currently the largest published) to perform statistical analyses of the results. Finally, I describe radar observations that I took of the near-Earth asteroid 1566 Icarus, and apply the techniques described above to these data. I determine a shape and spin model for this object, and describe several of its heretofore unknown unusual surface scattering properties.