A comparative study of infrared asteroid surveys: IRAS, AKARI, and WISE

We present a comparative study of three infrared asteroid surveys based on the size and albedo data from the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS), the Japanese infrared satellite AKARI, and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). Our study showed that: (i) the total number of asteroids detected with diameter and albedo information with these three surveyors is 138285, which is largely contributed by WISE; (ii) the diameters and albedos measured by the three surveyors for 1993 commonly detected asteroids are in good agreement, and within ±10% in diameter and ±22% in albedo at 1 σ deviation level. It is true that WISE offers size and albedo of a large fraction (> 20%) of known asteroids down to bodies of a few km, but we would suggest that the IRAS and AKARI catalogs compensate for larger asteroids up to several hundred km, especially in the main belt region. We discuss the complementarity of these three catalogs in order to facilitate the use of these data sets for characterizing the physical properties of minor planets.