Letter to the Editor

25143 Itokawa: direct detection of the current decelerating spin state due to YORP effect

¹ Department of Earth and Planetary Science, The University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan e-mail: kitazato@planeta.sci.isas.jaxa.jp
² Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Sagamihara, Kanagawa 229-8510, Japan
³ School of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-747, Korea
⁴ Institute of Space Science, National Central University, 32054 Chung Li, Taiwan

Received: 25 June 2007
Accepted: 9 July 2007

Abstract

Aims.The Hayabusa mission revealed fundamental physical properties of the small near-Earth asteroid 25143 Itokawa, such as shape and mass, during its rendezvous with the asteroid in 2005. Resulting from this, the YORP-induced change in the asteroid's spin state has been predicted theoretically. The purpose of this study is to investigate the YORP effect for Itokawa directly from an observational perspective.

Methods.A long-term campaign of ground-based photometric observations of Itokawa were performed from March 2001 to December 2006. The observed asteroid lightcurves were compared with numerical modeling using the detailed shape model and global surface photometric properties derived from the Hayabusa mission.

Results.As a non-linear time evolution of rotational phase lag is shown, we found that Itokawa has been decreasing its spin rate by = -1.2 (± 0.2) 10^-17 rad s^-2. The detected deceleration rate is almost consistent with, but slightly smaller than, the theoretically predicted value due to the YORP effect.