Rapid-Response Spectrophotometric Observations of NEOs with UKIRT and RATIR
The understanding of the compositional distribution of NEOs is important to reconstruct their dynamical and physical evolution, assess the damage potential in case of an impact, and estimate the resources that can be obtained from these bodies in the not-so-far future. Also, there is still a discrepancy between the compositional distribution of meteoritic material found on Earth and the overall composition of the NEO distribution. The most common way to investigate the compositions of asteroids is to perform spectroscopic observations: wavelength-dependent variations of the surface reflectance can be diagnostic for the composition of an object and allow for a taxonomic classification. However, spectroscopic observations are usually only possible for bright and large asteroids and require large telescopes for small asteroids. ...