Comparison of Deterministic Methods to Estimate Sidereal Rotation Period from Light Curves

What is it about?

The importance of determining the sidereal rotation period of an astronomical object on future investigations pertaining to said object has been well documented in the literature. Researchers, however, have differed in their techniques utilized to estimate and model objects in the space catalog. In this article, several period estimation methods will be explored ranging across Fourier and phase-folding techniques. These methods will be tested using ground-based observations of light curve data for various resident space objects that fall under a rigid body context (i.e. asteroids, satellites, probes, rocket bodies) and celestial objects like stars and extrasolar planets.

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