DOI: 10.5068/d10d6g
title: Data from: Analysis of four-band WISE observations of asteroids

description: This dataset describes a curated set of Wide-field Infrared Survey
 Explorer (WISE) observations of 4420 asteroids. We analyzed 82,548
 carefully curated observations of 4420 asteroids with Wide-field Infrared
 Survey Explorer (WISE) four-band data to produce estimates of diameters
 and infrared emissivities. We also used these diameter values in
 conjunction with absolute visual magnitudes to infer estimates of
 visible-band geometric albedos. We provide solutions to 131 asteroids not
 analyzed by the NEOWISE team and to 1778 asteroids not analyzed with
 four-band data by the NEOWISE team. Our process differs from the NEOWISE
 analysis in that it uses an accurate solar flux, integrates the flux with
 actual bandpass responses, obeys Kirchhoff’s law, and does not force
 emissivity values in all four bands to an arbitrary value of 0.9. We used
 a regularized model-fitting algorithm that yields improved fits to the
 data. Our results more closely match stellar-occultation diameter
 estimates than the NEOWISE results by a factor of ∼2. Using 24
 high-quality stellar-occultation results as a benchmark, we found that the
 median error of four-infrared-band diameter estimates in a carefully
 curated data set is 9.3%. Our results also suggest the presence of a
 size-dependent bias in the NEOWISE diameter estimates, which may pollute
 estimates of asteroid size distributions and slightly inflate
 impact-hazard risk calculations. For more than 90% of asteroids in this
 sample, the primary source of error on the albedo estimate is the error in
 absolute visual magnitude. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC
 Infrared Science Archive, which is funded by the National Aeronautics and
 Space Administration and operated by the California Institute of
 Technology.
description: We selected a small, high-quality subset of the data from the
 WISE All-Sky
 Data Release. These data were obtained during the WISE
 full-cryogenic mission phase, from 7 January 2010 to 6 August 2010. This
 subset includes only observations of 4420 asteroids for which there are at
 least three high-quality observations in each one of the four WISE
 wavelength bands. We added ancillary data to each observation by querying
 the NASA JPL
 HORIZONS service. The data collection procedures are described
 in detail by N. Myhrvold, P.
 Pinchuk, J. L. Margot. Analysis of four-band WISE observations of
 asteroids. <em>Planetary Science Journal</em>,
 <strong>3</strong>, 2022.
description: The data are provided as comma-separated values (CSV).
 The field names, (types),
 [provenance], and descriptions are as follows:
 wavelength (str)
 [WISE]: WISE band (w1, w2, w3, or w4)  
 ras (float) [HORIZONS]:
 heliocentric distance in astronomical units
 rao (float) [HORIZONS]:
 geocentric distance in astronomical unit
 phase_ang (float) [HORIZONS]:
 phase angle in degrees name (str) [WISE]: asteroid number or provisional
 designation mjd (float) [WISE]: modified Julian date of the
 single-exposure covering the source
 m_flux (float) [WISE]:
 magnitude measured with profile-fitting photometry
 err (float)
 [WISE]: profile-fit photometric measurement uncertainty in
 mag units H (float)
 [HORIZONS]: absolute visual magnitude  
 G (float) [HORIZONS]:
 magnitude slope parameter data_filter_group (str) [authors]: internal
 description of data subset  dist_x (float) [WISE]: distance in
 arcsec between each moving object source and its potential match in the
 WISE All-Sky Single Exposure (L1b) Source Table 
 nb (int) [WISE]: number of
 blend components used in each fit na (int) [WISE]: active deblend flag
 (=1 if actively deblended) sso_flg (int) [WISE]: known solar
 system object association flag (0=no association,
 &gt;0=association) Epoch_ID (int) [authors]: zero-based index of
 cluster of observations (clusters were formed when
 consecutive observations were more than 30 days
 apart)