by Yasuhiro Koyama, Makoto Yoshikawa, Takahiro Iwata, Junichi Nakajima,
Mamoru Sekido, Akiko M. Nakamura, Hisashi Hirabayashi, Tatsuaki Okada,
Masanao Abe, Toshiyuki Nishibori, Tsuko Nakamura, Steven J. Ostro,
Donald K. Yeomans, Dennis Choate, Reginald A. Cormier, Ron Winkler,
Raymond F. Jurgens, Jon D. Giorgini, and Martin A. Slade
Proceedings to the 28th Lunar and Planetary Symposium held at
Institute of Space and Astronautical Science from July 31 to
August 2, 1995
Abstract
By taking an opportunity of a close approach of an asteroid 6489
(=1991 JX) to the Earth at 0.034 AU in June 1995, test observations
of the radar echo from the asteroid were carried out under an
international collaboration among the US, Russia and Japan.
We report the detection of the radar echoes from the data obtained
with 34m antenna at Kashima. The asteroid 6489 became the first solar
system object observed by means of radar technique in Japan and it
was a quite important step towards the future radar observations of
asteroids. Although the observations were short duration for test
and demonstration purposes, we could retrieve information about the
size and reflectivity of the asteroid.