Astrometric masses of 21 asteroids, and an integrated asteroid ephemeris

Abstract

We apply the technique of astrometric mass determination to measure the masses of 21 main-belt asteroids; the masses of 9 Metis (1.03 ± 0.24 × 10 -11 M ⊙ ), 17 Thetis (6.17 ± 0.64 × 10 -13 M ⊙ ), 19 Fortuna (5.41 ± 0.76 × 10 -12 M ⊙ ), and 189 Phthia (1.87 ± 0.64 × 10 -14 M ⊙ ) appear to be new. The resulting bulk porosities of 11 Parthenope (12±4%) and 16 Psyche (46±16%) are smaller than previously-reported values. Empirical expressions modeling bulk density as a function of mean radius are presented for the C and S taxonomic classes. To accurately model the forces on these asteroids during the mass determination process, we created an integrated ephemeris of the 300 large asteroids used in preparing the DE-405 planetary ephemeris; this new BC-405 integrated asteroid ephemeris also appears useful in other high-accuracy applications.