Thermal Inertia of Binary Near-Earth Asteroids

Binary asteroids represent approximately 15% of the near-Earth asteroid population, and their study can provide important insights into the physical processes that act on all asteroids. From thermophysical modelling of 7 binary near-Earth asteroids, we determined that their average thermal inertia value was 150 ± 50 SI units, which implies that small grains are preferentially kept during their formation.